The City of Harlan is welcoming a return to an old tradition to the holiday season. The downtown square of Harlan will host a lighting ceremony on Friday evening to boost the holiday spirits. Shelby County Auditor Marsha Carter says the lighting ceremony has been a joint effort. “The city of Harlan was looking at new Christmas lights and then the more conversations we had, we kind of threw it out to have the animated lights. It started out as wouldn’t it be fun? And everyone jumped on the idea. I made the comment in initial meetings, I have never seen a project where the county, the city and HMU and everyone involved was so excited about on project. It has been a lot of fun putting it together.”

Off Kilter Media out of Harlan is actually programming the lights for the ceremony on Friday along with crews from Harlan Municipal Utilities. The Hotel/Motel Tax Committee has also played a big role as they donated funding for the project. Carter says she hopes that this is the start to bring the old tradition back to Harlan. “We always referred to it as Christmas City a lot when we were kids and that’s what this is all about, to try and get the Christmas City idea back to Harlan.”

The whole event starts on Friday at 5pm in downtown Harlan. Carter says “Santa will arrive on the Fire Engine. We plan to have Christmas Carolers up here. There will be coffee, hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. If everything works, weather wise, we are going to set up three fire pits out on the south side of the square to roast marshmallows. Santa will turn the lights on sometime between 5 and 5:15pm.”

Horse and buggy rides will be provided to families during the ceremony and some of the businesses around the square will be open later to get some holiday shopping completed. Carter says the lighting on the square will not be designated to one night either. She says  “The shows will be done every night through Christmas until 10pm. It will play so many songs and then shut off for a few minutes and start again. I wanted everyone to know we will do Christmas music through Christmas Day and then starting December 26^th through New Year’s we will do a salute to the troops. So there will be military music playing.”

The festivities on the square Friday will wrap up around 7pm but the lights will stay on until 10.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)