By Richard Turtle

EMC News -Stirling -After a launch that came on the village’s 150th anniversary celebrations, officials at the local museum have vowed to renew a Christmas tradition.

Now known as Christmas at Farmtown Park, the museum fund raiser, scheduled for late November to coincide with the annual Starlite House Tour, will feature a well-dressed Heritage Village and numerous decorated trees, wreaths and other Christmas items up for raffle. And early expectations put the number of visitors at more than 1,000 over the course of the event.

“It’s back by popular demand,” says museum volunteer Edith Ray who is currently on the lookout for participants in this year’s house tour, slated for Thursday, November 22. But museum officials admit it was in large part thanks to the insistence of organizing committee chair Harry Danford that Christmas at Farmtown Park has been resurrected. Fellow committee members include Creative Chair Lynda Ackey who was long involved in Tweed’s Festival of Trees, Museum President Ron Reid, Kathy Reid, Mary Hunt, Lara Storrar and Museum Manager Sandy Donnan.

With a $5 admission price, the Christmas fund raiser will run from November 22 to 24 with the raffle draws held at 3 p.m. on the final Sunday. “We will be calling our volunteers,” says Donnan of the recently announced project. “It will take an army of volunteers to pull it off … and we will continue to thrive with their help.”

The two events represent the museum’s biggest fund raiser of the year with tickets available for the house tour in October and admission at the door for all four days of Christmas at Farmtown Park.

“Farmtown Park cel-ebrates the heritage of rural Ontario,” says Ackey, who was asked to join the organizing committee. “I am honoured to have been invited to share with other volunteers in their fund-raising Christmas event.”