Medicine Hat Christmas favourites will go ahead this year

In a tough year all around, board chair Jeremy Silver says the City Centre Development Agency has actually managed to find a silver lining.

He says the budget has been tripled this year after major CCDA events like the Chili Cookoff were cancelled and the City of Medicine Hat Parks and Recreation Department was able to allocate some of its budget to the tree lighting.

“Instead of going to the store and purchasing a bunch of Christmas lights we actually went to a commercial-grade Christmas light. That and we also went to the trouble of fabricating fake branches to fill in certain gaps in the tree to make the tree look more full,” Silver says.

He says after experimenting last year with stringing the lights from top to bottom, the CCDA will give the public a “much more grandiose” tree this year.

Silver says that will help when budget belts are likely to be tightened next year due to the current pandemic.

The tree lighting will happen at 6 p.m. as usual, but the park will be closed to pedestrians. Instead, the CCDA has permission from the city to close off the streets so people can watch from the street corner.

Santa Claus will be there from 2-4 p.m. and again from 6-8 p.m. in the bed of a truck that children can stand in front of it to get a picture with him.

Santa will also have a mailbox there “that you can put your toy requests in and he can take them back to the North Pole with him,” says Silver.

As for the businesses, Silver says Midnight Madness is downtown’s busiest shopping day of the year.

“Your friends, your family and your neighbours rely on this. All the money you spend downtown stays local. Every dollar you spend here stays here. Amazon is not hurting for money but your neighbours are,” he says.

At the Stampede grounds, Olde Tyme Christmas will move from its regular Thursday to Saturday, Dec. 5 and will move from Pioneer Village to the Cypress Centre parking lot.

“We’re going to have a drive-thru Olde Tyme Christmas,” says Darlene Keeler, of the 4-7 p.m. event. “We will have two tents set up and they will have drive-thrus on either side of them. The people will be getting a hot dog, a bag of chips, a juice box and a candy cane.”

Save-On-Foods is supplying the food.

The reigning Stampede royalty will be there, as will many members of different Stampede committees and wagons that normally give rides. Keeler also hopes to get local council members and Cypress County fire trucks there.

As with Midnight Madness, Santa Claus will be there for physically-distanced pictures.

“I think the people of Medicine Hat still want to have this activity event though we have to change it a little bit it will be still a fun, festive time for everybody and it’s a kickoff to the Christmas season.”

Silver also says the community is at the heart of the event.

In the past, it’s been a community spirit event where everybody got together and celebrated Christmas. I know we can’t be as close as we want to be this year but that doesn’t mean that we can’t support each other and be there for each other and support our community.”

For more on either event visit downtownmedicinehat.com or mhstampede.com.

by Chris Brown

Medicine Hat Christmas favourites will go ahead this year

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