Christmas event in park proves popular

Rec board vice chairman describes 2019 edition of celebration as ‘a huge success’

Christmas in Madison Village Park marked its 30th anniversary this year.

But the Dec. 7 event also stood out as being special for other reasons, such as attracting a record number of children who visited with Santa Claus. Duane Frager, vice chairman of the board for the Madison Joint Recreation District, which sponsors the annual celebration, described the 2019 edition of Christmas in Madison Village Park as “a huge success.”

Frager noted the highlights of this year’s Christmas in Madison Village Park at the Dec. 16 meeting Madison Village Council, on which he also serves as president. Christmas in Madison Village Park features free popcorn, hot chocolate and cookies, along with yuletide music and a bonfire. Another highlight is the Christmas parade, which begins at 5:30 p.m., a halfhour before the event in the park kicks off. The last entry in the parade, a fire truck, transports a special passenger — Santa Claus.

Santa stays at the event until every child gets to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. As a result, the event at Village Park, located at River and West Main streets, sometimes stretches beyond its scheduled two-hour time frame.

In an interview that took place about a month before the Dec. 7 event, Frager said Christmas in Madison Village Park traditionally draws between 150 and 200 children.

“And it’s not just (families attending) from Madison,” he said. “We’ve had people from places like Willoughby, Wickliffe, Mentor and Thompson.”

Frager, at the Dec. 16 council meeting, explained how Christmas in Madison Village Park organizers estimate attendance at the event.

“Every kid that sits on Santa’s lap gets a coloring book,” Frager said. “And so, we just take the total number of coloring books that we have and how many we have left after the event and that tells us how many kids. And then we just double that, because we say there’s at least one parent per child — we hope — and we know that the (overall) number is somewhere north of that.”

During the 2019 Christmas in Madison Village Park, organizers distributed 270 coloring books, which is an event record, Frager said. With a minimum of one parent or other adult caregiver for each of those children, that would account for 540 people, he added.

But that figure goes even higher when figuring in other adults who came to the festival without kids, as well as 51 registered volunteers.

“We had north of 600 people in that park,” Frager concluded.

With such a large turnout, event organizers saw some of their food and beverage inventory wiped out faster than expected.

“We actually had to go make an emergency run for more hot chocolate and cookies because we went through them by 6:30 and still had an hour and a half to go,” Frager said.