Morinville Christmas Festival draws festive crowds [photos]

By MorinvilleNews.com Staff

Morinville – The Town of Morinville’s Annual Lite Up the Nite Christmas Festival provided a variety of activities for area residents Friday night and Saturday.

The weekend started with the Morinville community Bus making the rounds of Morinville’s two grocery stores, took to the ice with the Jets alumni Game Friday night and kicked into full gear Saturday with children’s activities, a craft fair and the main event – the annual Christmas parade, park lighting and fireworks.

Below is a selection of photos from this weekend’s activities.

Click on an image to see full size, then scroll with mouse wheel or arrow keys through the gallery.

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11 Comments

  1. Wow. I can honestly say I was so looking forward to this morning, being able to sit down and read all the coverage on the Christmas Festival and look at the pictures of the greatly decorated floats (for those who actually made the effort to make a real float) in the parade. I can say that I am thoroughly disappointed in the major lack of effort put into covering this great event. It reminds me of the non-existant coverage of the St.Jean Baptiste Festival. If Morinville is trying to get put on the map and recognized, dont’ you think that Morinville should recognize itself first? I hope that you share my comment with MorinvilleNews.com readers, because I am sure I am not the only one that is feeling this way.

    • Thank you for your comments.

      We try to publish all reader comments.

      MorinvilleNews.com took approximately 120 Christmas Festival photos between Friday at noon ( Fill-A-Bus and cheque presentations) and Saturday evening’s Lite Up the Nite parade and park lighting. Daylight photos got a little higher profile because they turned out better.

      From the overall number we selected 15 that we felt caught the essence of the festival weekend, which was far more than merely the parade and its floats and was really about the community of Morinville coming together at a time of year when we look past people’s faults and towards what is good and celabratory.

      In addition to our lacklustre coverage of the weekend’s festival we spent approximately 10 hours volunteering at the two Morinville Jets hockey games Friday evening, the Library’s craft show Saturday afternoon and the parade Saturday night because we feel it is important to be a part of the community we cover.

      With respect to St. Jean Baptiste and the lack of coverage there, I’ll direct you to the following page:

      http://morinvillenews.com/2010/06/27/st-jean-baptiste-festival-2010-delivered-what-it-promised/

      Our Monday morning coverage included a photo gallery of 47 photographs from the entire weekend as well as a 7:30 video of the weekend’s events. Regretably, there were just too many events going on at the same time to be able to cover them all at once.

      We’ll try to pick up the pace a little in the future.

  2. I am very happy to see the Morinville Media could make it to the parade. Next year perhaps, you can make the entire route! Good job Stephen. I’m sorry the car broke down but I’m impressed you printed the picture anyhow. Too funny!

    • I’m told the car wound up in an alley off 100 Avenue and the tranny was somewhere on 100 Street.

  3. That’s too funny! It’s not the first time a vehicle has had to leave the parade via that alley.

  4. well am i ever glad they did chose to share your comments melissa, but as for sharing your view i most certainly do not. how difficult it must be for you to go through your day with such jaded negativity, and what a prime example of how you simply can not please some people.
    non existant coverage? what part did not exist, the articles..? the video..? the amazing photo gallery..?
    “for those who actually made the effort to make a real float” oh, my goodness…the whole community doing something together in a small town tradition of heart doesnt quite do it for you does it? is the season not commercial enough for you that you want to take the small town out of small town events as well now. maybe the macey’s parade or a vegas show would be more to your liking, but ours is done for each other, as a community and for our children, and if it is a little too reminiscent of actual candles on the trees and yule logs for your liking i hope i can be the first to wish you a very merry christmas, with no singing santa or disclaimer about seasons greetings included.
    personally i know for a fact that morinville is on the map, in the minds and eyes even of big city folk, for its well earned reputation of being a great small town, a wonderful community, full of heart and friends. i would also like to add a thank you to the morinvillenews.com for not only reminding us of that, but for giving us access to it at our fingertips.

  5. While I do appreciate that you volunteered many hours during this weekends festivities, I still believe that the minimal coverage of the weekend is unfair to Morinville and to those who are working hard to attract businesses and tourists. I see nothing on the activities that took place at Vanier Saturday morning/afternoon. I would loved to have seen a picture of a child and their newly made craft, or maybe a comment by one on how much they were enjoying their day or looking forward to Christmas. Was there not a pancake breakfast going on at the legion that morning? Was it a fundraiser? If so, how much was earned and for which charity? Did the festival have a contest for the best floats this year? Who won? And why did the community bus ’round’ the 2 grocery stores?

    I am sorry if I am asking too much but it is festivals like this that attract people to our community, as you can tell with the exceptional turn-out of residents along the parade route.

    I love MorinvilleNews.com and look forward to reading it on a daily basis, and will continue to do so. I also am spreading the news about MorinvilleNews.com because I think it is such a great asset to Morinville. And I am glad I am able to offer my opinion on the many things you report. Thank-you for taking my comment into consideration.

    • I was at the children’s event in the morning and there is a photograph of magician Brian Lehr in the 15 photos we selected.

      As to the winners of the float contest, we have yet to recieve that information from the Town of Morinville and plan to publish it when it is recieved.

      As to why the Community Bus rounded the two grocery stores, we have a full story on that in today’s edition, complete with the poundage of food collected, the dollar amount raised and photos of the three cheque presentations. We also did a story last week on the schools collecting food for the food bank as well as a full story on the upcoming festival and what was going on where.

      But there were things we missed – how much money was raised for the Morinville Public Library at their craft sale. Likewise, as you point out, how much was raised for the Lions breakfast. Some of those figures are probably not even tabulated yet.

      In short, we do the best we can with the information we can obtain in the time we have to obtain it.

  6. I am unable to locate the 47 picture gallery and the 7:30 min video that both yourself and It (whoever that is??) have referred to. Where can I find it?

  7. Ah. I misunderstood what I read. I thought the gallery and video reference was for the Christmas Festival. And as for my reference to the coverage of the St.Jean Baptiste Festival, I retract my comments and apologize. I do recall now that you were the only media to cover it. Thank you! And I look forward to the follow up articles on the Christmas Festival.

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