Imagine a 14-foot tall Christmas tree where the Courthouse once stood at South Park. Imagine a street party with food trucks, caroling, activities for all ages, and a Tree Lighting Ceremony at dusk. Doesn’t that sound magical?
I grew up in a family that was very close. Every Christmas Eve was spent traveling to different family members homes. Eventually ending up back home at my grandparents house. My aunts and uncle, along with my cousins, would all come over and stay the night. We all got up at what seemed like 5 o’clock in the morning to unwrap our gifts, boy was the living room a mess after that. The rest of the day was spent with even more family.
It wasn’t just Christmas day that was magical to me, it was also the days leading up to Christmas. We would pack up in my grandma’s van, head to Utica Square or the mall, visit with Santa, grab some hot cocoa, and drive through the Swan Lake neighborhood to admire the lights. As I got older, we added a visit to Rhema in as well.
I now carry most of these traditions on with my little family, as well as some traditions from my husbands family. We take our girls to Bass Pro for pictures with Santa, we try to make it to Rhema, we can usually be found walking in the Vinita Christmas Parade, and on Christmas Eve, we pack up the car with the girls in their pj’s, and drive around town looking at the lights.
I have always wished Vinita had just a little bit more to enjoy around Christmas.
Our group was formed last December during a discussion on Facebook. I don’t know about you, but I am one that loves to watch all the cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies.
This is how the discussion began. It was on a Sunday when one of my friends posted that she wished Vinita could have a Hallmark Christmas. We all started chiming in with ideas of what we wanted if we could ever make that happen; an Ice Skating Rink, a Live Tree, Santa at the Gazebo, Cookies and Cocoa. Honestly, we were just dreaming. Then, another friend boldly asked, Why not? Why can’t WE have that here? And so our group began.
Christmas in Vinita is a new grass-roots organization formed with the purpose of bringing a little extra Christmas Magic to Vinita by hosting a Tree Lighting Ceremony and to decorate downtown Vinita, to involve the community in creating an atmosphere of a Hometown Family Christmas.
We held our first meeting in February, put officers in place, and have since held monthly planning meetings. We have met with the the City Council, where they unanimously approved our plan. We had an informational booth at the Vinita Route 66 Festival and also at Oktoberfest of Vinita.
Our Ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 1st beginning at Noon. We will have local craft vendors, along with local food trucks. We are excited to be teaming with local churches and other organizations to bring children’s activities to the event, such as cookie decorating, ornament decorating, letters to Santa, train rides, Santa himself, and much more. All of the children’s activities will be free.
We will also have live entertainment featuring the Joyful Dance Clogging Club, a Community Choir, Elizabeth Montgomery, and more.
This year we were able to purchase a live 14ft tree. We are so excited to have Tess Maune from The News on 6 to be our celebrity Tree Lighter.
One of our goals when starting Christmas in Vinita was to make the community feel like this was THEIR event. This is THEIR tree. This is THEIR Hometown Family Christmas.
While we are still looking for donations and sponsors for this years event, and the years to come, we could not have done this without our current community volunteers, donors and sponsors.
Thanks to our generous donors and sponsors, we are not only able to bring all the activities of the Tree Lighting Ceremony to Vinita, but we are also able to spruce up the City’s current Lamp Post decorations. This year, we will be fluffing the wreaths and garlands that the city already uses, replacing the lights that are currently on the wreaths, as well as replacing the current bows. In years to come, we hope to be able to replace the Lamp Post decorations completely.
Christmas in Vinita will also be starting an In Honor/In Memory of Fundraiser where community members can pay for a light In Honor or In Memory of someone special to them. We will place these Honors/Memories in the Vinita Daily Journal, on our website, and read them during our Tree Lighting Ceremony.
We are also encouraging downtown businesses to decorate their storefronts for the Christmas season. In years to come we would like for this to be a friendly competition with the winner receiving a trophy or plaque that would get passed to winners in the future.
We hope to be able to have door prizes that would help those in our community celebrate Christmas a little easier. We would love to be able to give away a few complete holiday meals, or gift certificates to be used for the ingredients needed.
We hope to build on what we will have this year. One of the things we would like for next year is a matinee movie featuring a favorite Christmas Movie, a downtown stroll with citizens dressed in Victorian era clothing, downtown carolers, and more. We are always open to ideas.
It has been such a great opportunity to help plan this event. I have met some amazing people that I would never have met before and shown me that this community is full of people ready to help and better our town.
We are excited to share our event with not only the citizens of Vinita, but people from all over the area.
We hope to make Christmas in Vinita a yearly Hometown Family tradition, only building from where we have begun.
~Brandi Morgan
