Oct 4, 2016 2 min read

MONONGAHELA – The organizers who bring Santa Claus to downtown Monongahela every year haven’t been feeling jolly this week.

The executive director of Monongahela Area Chamber of Commerce said she was notified Sunday that organization’s whimsical Santa House was vandalized while it was in storage near a city garage.

“Shame, shame, shame, shame,” the director, Dorothea Pemberton, said Tuesday.

“What kind of gratification can you get from kicking in the door to Santa’s house?” she said.

The small, red-and-white house has been a staple during Christmastime in the small Mon Valley city. The rotund man with a white beard and wearing a red suit typically stands outside the small house in the 200 block of West Main Street and waves at people or poses for photographs with children.

“It’s been in the community for decades,” Pemberton said. “So many people have told me they have photographs of their kids in front of that house.”

Pemberton said there was no reason to kick in the door to the house because there’s nothing inside it when it’s in storage at the city’s road department garage. A pane of glass also was broken on the door.

“I was a little bit shocked, saddened,” Pemberton said. “We were very disappointed.”

She said many people have stepped up to volunteer to repair the house, work that likely will cost $200.

It will be repainted, repaired and ready for the city’s Nov. 18 Light Up Night celebration, she added.