By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Drivers along Pelham’s major thoroughfares will notice much more Christmas cheer this holiday season, as the city is putting up many more lights than it has in the past few years.

During a mid-November meeting, City Council President Rick Hayes said the city was working to purchase and install new snowflake lights to replace the city’s aging light collection.

During an October city budget work session, Pelham Finance Director Tom Seale said it likely would cost the city about $134,000 to purchase new LED snowflake light fixtures to place on light and power poles throughout the city.

But after examining Pelham’s collection of snowflake light fixtures, Seale said the city was able to purchase new LED light bulbs for about $14,000 to place on the fixtures already owned by the city.

“That’s a significant savings, because those new fixtures would have been about $400 or $500 apiece,” Seale said.

This year, the city is placing 250 snowflake lights on light poles along U.S. 31, Shelby County 52 and Alabama 119, which is about twice as many lights as Pelham put out last year and more than four times as many as the city put out in 2011.

On Nov. 27, Seale said most of the snowflake lights had already been hung, and said the task would be completed by the time Pelham lights its city Christmas tree on Dec. 2.

“There have been some delays with the weather, but they should finish putting them up today,” Seale said.