With around 60 cottages and nearly 500,000 lights, Ogden officials are finalizing preparations for this year’s Christmas Village installment, eager for the holiday cheer it generates and the visitors it draws.
“It’s great for the community just as a community-building event, but it’s also great, I think, economically for the downtown area. It brings a lot of people downtown,” said Monte Stewart, Ogden’s parks and cemetery director.
Opening night — which includes the Holiday Electric Light Parade through downtown Ogden, the official lighting of Christmas Village and fireworks — can draw 20,000 to 30,000 people, Stewart said. Over the course of December, the free attraction on the grounds around the Ogden Municipal Building, 2549 Washington Blvd., can draw up to 100,000 people in all. It actually goes through Jan. 1.
“The community loves it. It’s a tradition,” Stewart said, even among people who live outside Ogden. Work to set it up started back in October.
This year, things officially get going on Saturday, Nov. 29, with a Santa Run at 4:30 p.m. followed by the parade at 5:30 p.m., which goes along Washington Boulevard from 22nd Street south to 27th Street. Santa Claus will be on hand, and the official lighting of the village and fireworks will take place about 6:30 p.m.
The annual event launched in 1962, with the village expanding from six cottages that year to 62 this year. The cottages are small structures with Christmas displays inside, designed and kept up by local businesses and others. They are scattered around the municipal building grounds amid trees bedecked with colorful LED lights.
Ogden spokesman Mike McBride estimates there are around a million lights in all, counting the 470,000 or so within Christmas Village and more along Historic 25th Street and adjacent Washington Boulevard.
Stewart, possibly biased, thinks Christmas Village is the best Christmas display in the state, better even than annual extravaganzas at Spanish Fork, Willard Bay State Park and Temple Square in Salt Lake City. He’s helped with the Ogden display for 18 years.
“I’ve seen some really beautiful displays at Temple Square over the years with the lights and the trees. I really think Ogden is the best. I don’t think you can find a better one in the state, by any means,” he said.
Like last year, Christmas Village is a nominee for USA Today’s best public holiday lights display in the nation. Online voting goes until Monday at 10 a.m.