Warsaw planning holiday celebration
The Beacon’s Christmas tree featuring pictures of local people reading the paper is one of several trees on display at the museum in Warsaw. Josie Sellers | Beacon
WARSAW – The Village of Warsaw will officially kick off the holiday season with a variety of activities on Sunday, Dec. 1.
This year people can enjoy music playing in the gazebo from 6 to 6:30 p.m. prior to lining the street for the parade, which is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m.
“We are doing the parade first this year and then going right into the ceremony with the speaker, songs, and the candlelighting,” said James Rose, who is helping to plan the festivities.
They are hoping to have a longer parade than in the past.
“I took applications around to the Warsaw businesses, but it’s open to anyone who wants to come and be involved,” Rose said. “We’d like people to preregister, but with this being the first year we know there might be people who just show up.”
Anyone who would like to preregister for the parade can call Rose at 740-610-7922 or e-mail him at jrose547@gmail.com.
Also new this year will be activities inside the fire station from 6 to 9 p.m.
“We are going to try and have a decoration station and let the kids write letters to Santa,” Rose said.
The letters can be dropped in the mailbox across from the gazebo at the Seasons of Service tree lot.
“If they leave a return address Santa will respond,” Rose said.
The tree lot is a fundraiser to be able to give trees to families in need.
“It’s not just a tree either that they get,” Rose said. “They get the tree, the skirt, lights, ornaments and a topper. Our slogan is buy a tree, give a tree.”
All the money raised from selling trees is used to offset the cost of giving away trees and decorations.
“The tree packages are $150 each,” Rose said. “We try to give enough lights and ornaments so it looks nice. We buy all that stuff, but we always have it available at the lot if anyone wants to purchase it.”
He hopes to have the lot open the weekend prior to Thanksgiving or the weekend of Thanksgiving. It just depends on when the trees come in. Once the trees come in the lot will be open every Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday until the weekend prior to Christmas.
“Typically we try to have the Salvation Army select families for us,” Rose said. “We give them vouchers that families can use to redeem their tree package. We let them handle that because they kind of already have an understanding of financial situations when they do their Christmas signups. Last year we had an option too that if someone was in town and couldn’t get to Warsaw we would work out a way to get it to them.”
After dropping off letters to Santa, families can stop at the Walhonding Valley Historical Society Third annual Christmas Festival of Trees to view trees decorated by businesses and organizations.
“We are doing the same things this year, just trying to make our celebration a little bigger and hopefully draw more people to the community to give the Christmas season a good start,” Rose said.
Category: People & Places
