YORKTON - Turn on the TV and run through the multitude of channels and you are likely to find a Christmas movie every day from about mid-October until the big day in December.
While one won’t find academy award nominee material among the seasonal fare, you might note a rather common thread through many on them – the community coming together for a week of seasonal festivities.
Certainly here in Saskatchewan we have the weather for winter activities, and while the temperature might dip a bit more than we like another sweater and some hot chocolate deals with the chill not badly.
So should we be studying a few of these movies and creating a season festival here in Yorkton?
It appears we might be unknowingly creating something of a foundation already.
The YBID Christmas parade is already a long-running seasonal favourite.
The day of the parade Yorkton Comic Con is launching, hosted by Blue Drip Art Supplies on Betts.
One could certainly see other downtown locations hosting events, from seasonal art events like wreath creations, to ginger bread house building, to board game events to art shows.
And we have the local Lions Club working toward a Festival of Lights at the city campground whether it happens this year, or is another year out, it appears a sure thing.
And, might another group re-launch the festival of trees which once was a highly popular event at the local Western Development Museum.
In one recent seasonal movie the local hockey team acted as servers for an ‘apple cider tea’, and youngsters faced off in an outdoor hockey game.
These are not necessarily huge events – but much like the recent Culture Days activities – small activities linked together over a themed week, and you have a festival to bring smiles to the community.
And, it hopefully gets people up off the couch and taking in events in the city, rather than watching them happen in some seasonal movie they can still DVR for later if they want too.
Sometimes in our city good things happen in isolation of what else is happening, but with some general planning just what might we see created here?
There are a multitude of fine businesses and great community groups that could create a truly festive mosaic of events.
It is too late for this year, but planting the seed and letting it grow toward the 2024 holidays seems like a good idea to put forward.
