New decorations donated to East Point restaurant

By Mashaun D. Simon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Where’s Comet? Where's Cupid? Where's Donner and Blitzen ... ?

Somebody swiped Santa's eight tiny reindeer along with a majority of other Christmas decorations at the East Point Chick-fil-A at 1065 Cleveland Ave.

But a local man, hearing about the store's situation, made a generous donation to the store.

Cynthia Inman, owner/operator of the store since 2000, told the AJC Sunday that Thomas Cole called her Saturday after news broke that someone walked away with the store's decorations.

Cole said to Inman over the phone, "‘I hear you guys are missing some lights down there. I have some lights I can give you. And can you use a nativity scene?"

"Give me?" is how Inman responded.

"I am just overwhelmed right now," said Inman via phone Sunday night. "This is what Christmas is all about."

Sometime around midnight on Friday, two individuals took the decorations, which include the eight illuminating reindeer grazing on the back hill, six nets of Christmas lights, icicles and signs all used to bring some Christmas cheer to the neighborhood.

Inman said naysayers tried to warn her before she put up the first set of decorations. But she did not let that stop her.

"Our children deserve something different," she said Saturday.

Inman said she paid $4,000 of her own money for the decorations which were a part of the store’s 12 days of Christmas theme. On Friday and Saturdays kids have come to the store to sing carols while others have taken free photos with Santa Claus.

“We just wanted to spread a little holiday spirit this year,” she said.

Surveillance video shows one of the individuals taking down Christmas lights from the back of the store near the drive-thru box. Less than a minute later, another individual walks over to help the other carry the lights and icicles out of the camera's view.

Later the video shows them collecting the reindeer and carrying them away.

Police spokesman Cliff Chandler, reached late Saturday by cell phone, could not comment on the theft because he had not seen the incident report at the time.

Inman said community has been the focus of the store since she bought it nine years ago.

So far this year they have held a community-wide Easter Egg Hunt, a pumpkin decorating contest and an annual Labor Day "[John] Madden" football video game tournament.

Cole told Inman that he and his handicapped sister had accumulated so many decorations over the years. But due to his bad back, they had not been able to do anything with them. So he decided that giving them to the East Point store would serve a better purpose.

After church Sunday, she met her sister at Cole's home in Stone Mountain and filled their two Dodge Ram 1500s with the Christmas lights, wreaths and a nativity scene, all donated by Cole.

Her night manager and his son picked up wood and straw from Home Depot and built a manger and other items to complete their new nativity scene in the front of the store.

"We just had a hiccup of despair and look at what we have been blessed with," she said Sunday night. "We were saddened for a moment, but we never lost faith."