Chamber Christmas Festival draws a crowd despite the rainy day

By Alberta Stojkovic -

The rainy day fore­cast didn’t keep peo­ple away from the Christ­mas Fes­ti­val in Down­town Mount Gilead Sat­ur­day. A crowd came out to watch the parade at noon and stayed to enjoy shop­ping, turkey bowl­ing, a free movie and a visit with Santa.

Other after­noon activ­i­ties included “Rock on Ice” demon­stra­tions, Kiwa­nis Parade of Homes,

Bob’s Bar­rels of Fun Ride, Rein­deer, wagon rides and mak­ing a craft and snack at the Com­mu­nity Cen­ter. Youth gave a Taek­wondo demon­stra­tion on Main Street at the end of the after­noon with instruc­tor, Shane Smith. Pas­tor Mark at New Life Church read children’s stories.

The Mor­row County Com­mu­nity Cen­ter wel­comed more than 150 to their after­noon open house. Mor­row County Exten­sion edu­ca­tors, Dana Brown and Becky Barker were in the Com­mu­nity Cen­ter with Mid­dle School Art Teacher Anne Traut­man mak­ing good­ies for Christ­mas. 50 chil­dren made a Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion with Traut­man while Brown and Barker worked with the chil­dren to make a snack with pop­corn, mini marsh­mal­lows, M&Ms, raisins and honey gra­ham cereal.

The Town Crier, Rick Chilcote of Mount Gilead Trad­ing Co., added a touch of times gone by as he rang his bell and announced the sched­ule of activ­i­ties through­out the after­noon. The county his­tor­i­cal society’s Cross Home enter­tained vis­i­tors through the after­noon with an exhibit of dolls in sev­eral rooms. The home, built in 1829, sparkled with dec­o­ra­tions from the past while vis­i­tors enjoyed a home­made cookie.

The only con­cern expressed was that there were so many activ­i­ties that peo­ple might not be able to get around to all the ven­dors and businesses.

Jew­elry maker Tara Lawyer said that she had a steady stream all after­noon at her loca­tion near the square on Main Street. Cus­tomers at Mount Gilead Trad­ing Com­pany were glad to see so many new busi­nesses occu­py­ing the build­ings again downtown.

Rain held off in the after­noon so that the crowd could enjoy watch­ing the Turkey Bowl­ing, visit the rein­deer and enjoy wagon rides and rides in Bob’s Bar­rels of Fun. Mor­row County Cham­ber of Com­merce Board Mem­ber Becky Kil­gour was happy that there was no rain or snow to drive peo­ple away. The board is already look­ing for­ward to the 8th Annual Christ­mas Fes­ti­val next year.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.