Winter, it seems, is taking a balmy reprieve this week. With the weather outside so very far from frightful, what better reason for everyone to spend this Friday evening outside in the Perron District?
The city’s annual Snowflake Festival Light Up is a time for the community to celebrate the season in a spirit of togetherness, all at the heart of our cultural centre. To entice the masses, there will be something for everybody.
“There’s a lot of people that come,” understated Lynda Moffat, president and CEO with the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce. The organization hosts the event every year and attendance is expected to reach 5,000, about the same target as 2012.
“It was huge. Every year it grows.”
She loves the sight of the families and children as the lights first come on, on that large tree in front of the St. Albert Community Hall.
“How can you ever tire of that?” she laughed. “That’s pretty special.”
The festival also acts as the kickoff to the holiday season for the public and for the businesses, a lot of which will be open late to help the crowds celebrate and possibly get a bit of shopping out of the way at the same time.
“The whole area is geared up to welcome people.”
It all starts with the switch being thrown on the big Christmas tree at the community hall at 6:30 p.m. Afterward, the site will see live ice carvers demonstrating their art outside. Inside, people can pay a visit to Santa and do crafts while they wait.
Right next door, the Invisible Cities exhibition will enjoy a late Friday at the Art Gallery of St. Albert. A Happy Holidays workshop will be conducted downstairs.
St. Albert Place will be a hotbed of activity, and not just because there will be a fire performer lighting up the plaza. Inside, there will be storytelling around the Christmas tree, cookie decorating and Christmas ornament painting, plus face painting and balloon art.
People can vote on their favourite gingerbread houses while listening to carols performed by the United in Bronze handbell choir.
Grandin Theatres will also be putting on a seasonal movie for the kids. Kung Fu Panda Holiday plays four times over the evening. Shrek the Halls will also be screened at the theatre itself. The Musée Héritage Museum will host the opening of its Take Your Best Shot exhibition.
You can play shinny hockey along St. Michael Street and when you get tired, you can take a ride on the perennially favourite horse and wagon on St. Thomas Street.
“Those rides…” Moffat continued, “They fill up! They stay full all night long until it closes. It’s the most wonderful, wonderful thing.”
The Hemingway Centre, home to the Visual Arts Studio Association, will be the site of the unveiling of Garden Window, the newest piece of Art in Public Places. That takes place at 7 p.m. The next unveiling occurs half a block away, with Botanique Baroque unveiled in front of the City of St. Albert Business Centre at 29 Sir Winston Churchill Avenue.
The festival still has a conscience too. Attendees are encouraged to bring donations for the Fill-A-Bus Campaign to help benefit the annual St. Albert Kinettes Christmas Hamper effort.
Preview
Snowflake Festival <br />and Light Up St. Albert<br />Friday, Nov. 29 from 6:30 to 9 p.m.<br />Various points in the Perron District including St. Albert Place, the St. Albert Community Hall, Grandin Theatres, and stops along Perron, St. Michael and St. Thomas streets, and Sir Winston Churchill Ave.<br />Call 780-458-2833 or visit www.stalbertchamber.com for more information.
