Fortuna business and residences are decking the halls this week as the city’s decoration contest is underway, with public voting starting this week.
The Fortuna Christmas Dazzle is a chance for business owners and residents to display their holiday spirit. One of the businesses participating this year is a mother-daughter run bakery that opened their doors in the midst of the lockdown called “Fresh on Main Street.”
“We started off just doing sandwiches and soups and morning treats, but pretty soon the community started asking, ‘can we make cupcakes? Can we make desserts? Can we make cakes? so we told them yes, we can,” Owner of Fresh on Main Street, Monica Marinez said. “I come in at about three in the morning and I bake for the day. and then Melissa comes in and plates everything and displays everything, but everything is made to order.”
The mother-daughter duo, Monica and Melissa Marinez decided to enter in the contest for their love of community and the holidays.
“We love Christmas, anything I can do to spread the Christmas cheer,” Melissa Marinez said. “When we heard about the holiday dazzle, we were excited to enter, so we entered.”
And the local bakery has been getting great reactions from their customers.
“Some of the customers that have come in the store said ‘oh, we thought it was a christmas store,we didn’t realize it was a bakery,’” Monica Marinez said.
Another store participating on Main Street is a newly added houseplant and home decor shop called Golden State Succulents. Since opening up their shop back in July of this year the co-owner of Golden State Succulents, Michelle Oliver along with her husband, expressed that they’ve been quickly getting more involved in the community…
“People just stopping by and saying hi and finding out where we are is the key thing,” Oliver said.
The shop is decorated with almost all handmade and locally made decorations, and they are eager to find out this year’s results.
“We’re just hoping that everybody in the community can get out and drive around and look at all of everyone’s input and all their effort and vote,” Oliver said.
The voting started this week, and it will end on the 26th of December. To get more information and/or vote visit: www.fortunachamber.com/dazzle
