Christmas time is near-ish

Christmas time is near-ish

West Memphis making plans for the holiday season

news@theeveningtimes.com It’s the time of the year shoppers loathe. Halloween costumes and decor line the retail aisles and will soon yield to Christmas decorations that will overrun the same shelf spaces. West Memphis City Council took note and began during the first October meeting hearing an ordinance to waive competitive bidding for city holiday lights and decorations.

Worthington Park will serve as the anchor for the Christmas lights. Trees around the berms will be strung with decorations, LED character scenes displays will dance through the night. An all new ribbon tree with singing reindeer will debut in the park. A 40-foot tall cut Christmas tree will stand with a star on top in the center of it all.

West Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Jim Jackson told city council there was only one company up for consideration for the $43,000 job to put up and take down the festive lights.

“It’s that time of the year again for Worthington Park,” said Jackson. “We’ve had a really nice job done with decorating the park with an outside contractor, Festive Design. When we’ve tried to bid this out the only people responding are from Little Rock or Memphis and they are landscapers. West Memphis is too far for the company in Little Rock. We really don’t have anyone else capable of doing this type of decoration with a forty foot live tree, and a bucket truck to decorate all the parts of the park.”

The celebration will spread across the city with decorations going up all around.

From East Broadway to the MLK park and to light poles along Missouri.

“I think you’ll be really impressed with some of the things we will do,” said Jackson to city councilors. “There will be new and innovative displays that the kids will especially enjoy.”

Councilor Helen Harris couldn’t wait for what was to be unveiled on her Ward 5 end of Broadway.

“Do you have something for down by Pancho’s?” asked Harris.

“I don’t want to give it all away now,” said Jackson. “It’ll be a nice surprise. We have one, a really special one to put down there to be part of that.”

New lit snowflakes will glimmer in the evenings.

“We are going to do some things on the poles along Ingram Boulevard,” promised Jackson.

The water at the park and ride will be used to reflect extra shimmer for holiday light seekers.

“We’ll do some things at the park and ride that can be seen from both the service road and the Interstate,” said Jackson. “It will be big enough to be seen from all around and also reflect of the pond. We’ll have lights in the trees there too. Everybody will be impressed with that one. We’ve talked about it a lot. We will use a new technology designed especially for trees. It will be very impressive.”

City Council heard the first reading of the ordinance to award the contract to Festive Design and waive the bidding process. The measure will be read out and final consideration given in subsequent meetings. But Christmas is in the air.

File photo

By John Rech