Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
‘Elves’ make cities bright
Much work goes into dressing region in holiday style.
Several of Santa’s elves gathered recently in Springdale to do their work.
“These garlands aren’t the same length,” said the head elf, who was twisting three strands together and placing them in hanging baskets.
“Well, I don’t have any way to measure them,” replied the elf in charge of cutting garland into 3-foot lengths.
“Do we need to measure it out — put the tape on the floor,” suggested an elf wellversed in construction.
“Here, we can line up some chairs to measure against,” said a helpful elf as she pulled chairs from a table.
Crisis averted, the creating continued.
A handful of women, city officials, city staff and volunteers, spent Nov. 8 in the multipurpose room at Springdale City Hall. Their task for the day: create 22 baskets filled with greenery, Christmas balls, Christmas lights and topped with big red bows.
Today, those baskets hang on light poles with other holiday decorations along Emma Avenue in the city’s downtown area.
Christmas preparations in towns across Northwest Arkansas probably begin before Santa starts his list.
TEAM PROJECT
“We did it to make Emma Avenue more beautiful,” said Kathy Jaycox, a Springdale City Council member who headed up Operation Hanging Basket. “We have some older decorations, and we wanted to update with new things going on downtown.
“We’re thinking 22 baskets. How hard could it be? But we had no idea the size and scope,” she said.
Jaycox said she thinks this was the first volunteer decorators corps for the city in
many, many years.
Rose Lawrence, an administrative assistant in the office of Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse, said a group meets early each year to plan the decorations on Emma Avenue, the city’s main downtown street. That meeting will include representatives of the Public Works and Parks and Recreation departments, which install the lights; the Downtown Springdale Alliance; Lawrence “and anyone else who is interested in Christmas stuff,” she said.
The Springdale Beautification Foundation, a former community organization, spent $13,500 in 2006 for lighted silhouette displays placed around town, Lawrence said. Santa rides a dinosaur through Murphy Park. Gingerbread men tumble in front of the school district’s prekindergarten center. An old-fashioned carriage found its way to the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History.
Snowflakes hang from light poles along with the baskets. Lights wrap trees, and smaller lighted silhouettes of deer search for food at Emma Avenue’s intersections.
A tree that marks the entrance to downtown on North Thompson Street and Emma Avenue takes 136 strands of lights to create, Lawrence said. The color of the tree alternates each year, from red to green and back.
Lawrence said the city buys replacement bulbs for the displays every two years, and city workers check the condition of the displays, clean and fix them, re-count and store them.
City budgets for 2018 and the proposed budget for 2019 list $5,000 for Christmas decoration expenses.
“I don’t think we spent $1,000,” Jaycox said of the hanging baskets. Lights the city already had were used.
Lawrence said the city will be able to buy a new silhouette next year with money not spent from previous budgets.
“The mayor picks what he wants to display,” she said. Sprouse said his next Christmas wish will remain secret.
Jaycox and her elves are planning, too. More strings of lights for the baskets? Another 22?
OTHER LIGHTS
Fayetteville is renowned throughout the region for its lighted downtown square, known as the Lights of the Ozarks. It started in 1997, when George Smith, publisher of the Northwest Arkansas Times in Fayetteville, predecessor to this newspaper, brought the idea with him from Texas, according to an article in The Morning News, also a predecessor to this newspaper.
He proposed a lighting display stretching along U.S. 71 Business from Fayetteville to Bella Vista. Many cities and businesses along the route participated.
The idea evolved to 350,000 LED lights adorning bushes and buildings along the square and light pole displays down Dickson Street.
Experience Fayetteville organizes the lights display each year, with help from city crews that spend 2,000 hours over six weeks to install, said Molly Rawn, executive director of Experience Fayetteville.
Bentonville has the most eager elves, as city workers begin Sept. 4 wrapping trees in lights on that town’s downtown square, said Crant Osborne, operations manager for the city’s Parks and Tourism Department. They drape tree canopies in lights and use ground cover lights on the grassy parts. Two large Christmas trees and other lights adorn the courthouse.
“There’s 25 miles of lights in the trees alone,” Osborne said.
The city buys $10,000 of lights and $4,000 of rope lights each year, he said. Crews spent 3,240 hours putting up and taking down lights in 2017.
“They come down faster than they go up,” he said. “I love Christmas when I’m not on a lift truck putting up lights.”
City officials try to add something or mix up the display every year, Osborne said. He said he and Parks Director David Wright like to think out of the box.
The city of Rogers is stepping up its game, said Ben Cline, spokesman for that city.
The city hired an outside consultant to determine the city’s needs and spent $35,000 in both 2017 and this year to create its winter wonderland, Cline said. The display will expand as Frisco and Centennial parks are renovated downtown.
This year, the city has spanned Walnut Street with three lighted banners, centered by 8-foot wreaths.
“The public wanted spans across Walnut with Christmas lights as they had seen in historical photos,” he said.
FAMILY TRADITION
Aerial Courdin, vice president of marketing for the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, said recent efforts to decorate in Springdale have been “an effort to better the community overall. We want to get people down here. There are always wonderful people here and new things to see.”
Rawn in Fayetteville and Osborne in Bentonville report their cities’ traditions have become family traditions as residents bring friends and family visiting for the holidays to see the displays.
“It’s just so impressive,” said Greg Forrester of Springdale, who takes his family to both lighting displays and related events in his county. The family is excited their 7-year-old daughter, Parker, will lend her voice this year to a choir on the square in Fayetteville.
His wife, Jami, remembers her days growing up in Batesville and the lights around the town square and library.
“But this is better than when I was growing up,” Jami Forrester said. “We aren’t just riding around in the car.”
She said she declared at Parker’s first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning in a hotel room, that Christmas would always be at home. The Forresters said they like that the Christmas events are free and visitors can take the displays at their own pace. Also, it gives them something to do in the winter months, after the splash of summer is over.
Their son Wyatt, 5, likes the horses and camels at the Lights of the Ozarks, and Parker likes the lights making everything look like sprinkles on a cupcake.
“And I love hot chocolate,” Parker said.
The kids also remember having their picture taken with Santa at Christmas on the Creek in Springdale.
Bobby Critselouse, owner of Three Dog Bakery on the Bentonville square, said the lighting of the lights brings in Christmas shoppers. The owner of the 3-year-old business said the store sees high traffic on summer and fall days when the square hosts the farmers market and First Friday events. But then stores see a two- to three-week “gray season,” with fewer customers.
“But when the lights are lit during the holiday season, it picks back up,” he said. It starts at Thanksgiving, with residents bringing out-oftown family members to the lighting ceremony.
“Sales start to pick up Dec. 1,” Critselouse said. “And in the downtown location, there’s buildup to turning the lights on. The first day of the lights sets the tone of the season.”