Galion lights up with holiday fun

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

On Sat­ur­day, Dec. 1, Galion kicked off the hol­i­day sea­son with its fourth annual Come Home to Galion event. Res­i­dents and friends from sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties flocked to the Uptowne Dis­trict for all kinds of fun activ­i­ties and enter­tain­ment. Begin­ning at 1 p.m. and last­ing into the evening, there was a plethora of fam­ily friendly fodder.

The first day of Decem­ber turned out to be warm and sunny, which was ideal for lis­ten­ing to live music on the Pub­lic Square. There were per­for­mances by the Galion Alumni Band, Galion High School’s Show­tunes, Good Com­pany (a bar­ber­shop quar­tet) and Kim Lovely. Food and hot drinks were served in the court­yard and Santa Claus was at his house to greet the end­less line of chil­dren who wanted to visit him. His next vis­i­ta­tion hours are Dec. 7 from 5–8 p.m.

[/media-credit] The Galion Alumni Band kicks off the live music on the Square.

Those who “came home” could take self-guided tours at Brownella Cot­tage, which was dec­o­rated through­out with wreaths, rib­bons and other fes­tive attire. At the same time, Galion Pub­lic Library had an open house, which offered art, punch and brown­ies, and crafts for the kids. Vis­i­tors could also do a scav­enger hunt and lis­ten to Christ­mas stories.

Nine­teen houses were entered into the library’s Gin­ger­bread House con­test. The win­ners were: Abi­gail and Esther Mendell — first, Lehmann fam­ily — sec­ond (group cat­e­gory); Eliz­a­beth Keller — first, Alyssa Sallee — sec­ond (10 and over cat­e­gory); Emma Jutz — first, Brook­lyn Gates — sec­ond (9 and under cat­e­gory); and Best in Show was awarded to Greta and Van Winterseller.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Out­side, peo­ple could also check out ice sculpt­ing from the Columbus-based pro­fes­sion­als Rock on Ice. Sculp­tors worked on a rein­deer dur­ing the event that after­noon, but sev­eral other fin­ished pieces were on display.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Win­ners for the win­dow paint­ing con­test were also announced dur­ing Come Home to Galion. Ear­lier that week, Galion stu­dents dec­o­rated the front win­dows of Uptowne busi­nesses and peo­ple could cast their vote for a favorite. After more than 800 votes, the Cracked Pot won, painted by Danielle Saun­ders and San­dra Davis.

When the parade began at 4:30, a siz­able crowd gath­ered in the square and on the side­walks for sev­eral blocks to get a look. Of course, the event would not be com­plete with­out the tra­di­tional tree light­ing cer­e­mony. 2012 sum­mer Olympic athelete Nate Reink­ing, ‘92, lighted the tree with the help of the Galion Pri­mary School col­or­ing con­test winners.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Dec 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.