Residents have been left in disbelief and saddened to see the community effort destroyed, and it's cost them more than £1,000.
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00:00It's such a shock to our community. These are the words of locals in the small village
00:04of Cliffsend near Ramsgate who woke up this weekend with their homes and village halls
00:08Christmas decorations destroyed.
00:11This footage was captured on a ring doorbell in the village last weekend, and two teenagers,
00:16a boy and girl, have been charged with criminal damage and assault after the displays in several
00:20areas of the village were allegedly kicked, thrown and torn up, with one man even reporting
00:26damage to his work van.
00:28This was a blow to the local community.
00:30I can't believe it actually. I mean, I can't think what goes through anyone's mind to do
00:37something like that. It's outrageous.
00:39It's awful. They shouldn't have done it. A lot of money has been spent on the community
00:44doing all this, and it's unfortunate they have nothing else to do but just to come along
00:49and do this for no apparent reason.
00:52The village is known for having large decorations, with many in the area having displays to show
00:57their love for the festive season.
00:59But the main attraction was the village hall's lights switch on event, which had a large
01:03crowd of all ages there and had been paid for by community events.
01:07This was what it looked like in the morning.
01:10This was really a community coming together and a statement of that. So for a couple of
01:15people or a small number of people, whoever it turns out is responsible to have done this,
01:22it's very difficult to find words because I'm afraid I have to say there's got to be
01:27some degree of sympathy for somebody being disturbed enough to want to upset everyone's
01:31Christmas to this degree.
01:34The decorations took a week to be put up by local volunteers and, in total, cost more
01:38than £1,000 of fundraising and donations.
01:42Cliff's End is only a small village, so when something like this happens, it can really
01:45hurt the local community. But the locals are very keen for this to not affect their Christmas
01:50spirits too much and are planning to bounce back with more Christmas events.
01:54The next step is to obviously make sure it's safe and then actually residents have come
02:01together and they've been dropping off lights to the village hall, like random sets of lights
02:05and stuff. And so we're going to try and get them up and you might have a light switch
02:12on part two at the weekend.
02:15Locals hope they can restore the village's Christmas spirit after the vandalism and bring
02:18the community closer in spite of it.
02:21Finn McDermid for KMTV in Cliff's End.