Town of Man lays out plans for upcoming Christmas season following successful Halloween

Town of Man Mayor John Fekete (center) told council members on Monday that the town's Halloween festivities were a rousing success, and he hopes to carry that momentum into the Christmas season.

Robert Fields | WVOW News

MAN The Town of Man has announced plans for its upcoming Christmas season and is asking for the public's help.

During Monday's Town Council meeting, Man Mayor John Fekete said the town will have its tree lighting ceremony and Christmas parade on Thursday, December 11th. Lineup will be that evening at 5:15 at William "Tootie" Carter Field and the parade will travel circle around town, stopping back at Man High School.

"We encourage all the churches to participate in the parade. If you've got a side by side or an ATV you want to decorate, a truck you want to decorate, a little clown car you want to decorate and put me in it, I'll be happy to ride in it," he said. "Whatever you want to decorate and put in our parade, we'll be happy to have you. We'd like to build the parade up and get more people involved."

Following the parade, Fekete says the tree lighting ceremony will be held at Market Square, including a special reading by a local author.

"Chad Ryan — he's a local, graduated from Man High School — he wrote a children's Christmas book. He's going to come and read a portion of it at our tree lighting," said Mayor Fekete. "We're going to have Santa Claus at the tree lighting. A couple of churches are going to be handing out hot chocolate and different things like that."

The lighting ceremony will also include caroling and a special performance by a local drama group.

One thing the mayor is asking the public to get involved in is setting up memorial trees on Market Square alongside the town's main tree. Last year, according to Mayor Fekete, there were around fifteen memorial trees set up to honor different groups and individuals. This year, he says he hopes to boost that number by a lot.

Last year, one of the first memorial trees to go up in Market Square was set up by the Town Police Department, honoring the sacrifices made by emergency responders.

"We've got a pretty big space out here. We'll put up our big town Christmas tree, and we'll buy Christmas ornaments for the kids at the schools — they decorate them and we'll put them on the tree for them," he said. "But we want local people to bring a small tree — six feet would be the limit on the height — and have their own 'in honor of' or 'in memory of' tree. We'll light it up for them. They can put all of the decorations on it. They can call Town Hall for more details on that also, but I'd like to fill Market Square up with memory trees."

The town will secure the trees to the ground as well as provide the electrical power for lighting. You can reach Man Town Hall at 304-583-9631.

The town is heading into the Christmas season with spirits high following what Mayor Fekete described as a "huge success" over Halloween last month. Man held its Monster Bash on October 25th and according to the mayor, the attendance was staggering.

"I don't know how many kids we had, five or six hundred kids," he said. "I mean it was packed from here to City Hall up to the Post Office. There may have been more."