LAUREL – For the past six years, residents of Laurel have celebrated Christmas through the annual Lights of Laurel. Held on Sunday, the event combines treasured holiday activities, such as house decorating competitions and cookie crawls with a tree auction and sightings of Santa Claus.
Event Co-chair Jocelin Johnson said since its inception, the event has been scaled back, but still attracts.
“It started as a weekend, and has scaled down to the cookie crawl,” she said. “It’s our one big fundraiser for the Laurel Betterment Fund, which funds different things throughout the year such as the food pantry, community meals, charcuterie boxes for teachers and aides at the school and filling the eggs for the Easter egg hunt..”
The Christmas event used to have a winter market with breakfast and Friday night events.
On average, Johnson said Lights of Laurel will raise $500 to $1,000. This year, at least 25 bakers donated cookies for the crawl. To participate, a person had to purchase a bag at the Laurel Community Church and proceed to the cookie tables. They could pick and choose what to add to the bag. Then people could walk to other businesses in town, such as Pitchfork Primitives & Fodder, Verg’s Garage and Hawkins Electrical Service, and add cookies to their bag.
“It’s essentially trick or treating, but with Christmas cookies,” said Co-chair Missy Pieters.
Johnson said they tend to see a lot of the same crawlers, so it is something people look forward to. Unfortunately, the cold weather on Sunday prevented some folks from participating in the tradition. However, they offered to bring the cookies to customers and delivered 10 bags.
New this year was an online poll of the best decorated house, and voters chose the home of Zach and Tiffany Shipley.
“It used to be the committee members would vote and make a decision on the winner,” Johnson said. “This year the community got to vote on the best decorated house. [The Shipleys] will receive a $50 grocery gift card from the Betterment Fund.”
Lights of Laurel started as a way to raise money to start the food pantry, and now the Laurel Betterment Fund fills it monthly.
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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.