It’s hard to believe Christmas is just over six weeks away.
The Barrhead and District Chamber of Commerce will try and bring some Christmas spirit to the community starting Friday evening when it combines for the first time ever its popular “Christmas Light Up” event, with the annual Christmas Parade.
For the past several years the Christmas Light Up has been a big success as dozens of downtown businesses turn on their lights at the same time to officially signal the beginning of the busy Christmas shopping season and extended hours for most downtown retail outlets.
It has been a different story with the annual Christmas parade, however, as it has not been greatly supported by the community, said chamber director of special events Fran Draper.
By combining the two events on the same evening, the chamber is confident they can turn the Christmas Light Up and parade into a memorable event, said Draper.
“We thought by combining the parade and light up, we could turn this into something very big in town and make it an event the entire community will come out to support,” she said.
Considering more than 4,000 packed into the Paddle River Golf Club for the recent Halloween Pumpkin Walk, organized by the Barrhead and Districts Co-op, there’s no reason the Christmas parade can’t draw similar numbers if promoted properly.
It might not happen on Friday night, but the chamber appears committed to making the light up and parade a big deal in this community.
Considering how much community support there is for worthwhile events in Barrhead, we praise the chamber and its members for putting in a lot of hard work to trying to make the annual Christmas parade something that matters.
The light up will commence festitivities Friday evening at 6 p.m., with the parade set to begin a few minutes later just outside Blue Heron Bowl.
The parade route will go down Highway 33 towards the downtown gazebo and down Main Street.
All chamber members who own businesses have been encouraged to enter a float in this year’s parade and Draper is hopeful no one who lines the parade route will be disappointed.
Mayor Brian Schulz will be leading the proceedings on the front float, while Santa Claus himself will be carried in a horse-drawn carriage at the back of the procession.
