Holiday spirits high at tree decorating party

SPIRIT LAKE – Spirits were high in Spirit Lake Friday as hundreds of children, dozens of volunteers, city officials, firefighters, police officers, and even Santa Claus joined in the town’s annual tree-decorating party.

Members of the Timberlake High School Band provided a merry musical backdrop, and the winter sun showed up to shine brightly during the event, as more than 300 students walked from Spirit Lake Elementary School to Maine Street where each placed an ornament on an evergreen tree and then was treated to hot chocolate and a big cookie.

Volunteers from the food bank and the Chamber of Commerce helped with the event and members of nutrition classes at Timberlake made and passed out the cookies. Midway during the festivities, fascinated children gave cheers as a police car led a city firetruck blasting “Here Comes Santa Claus” to the area. Santa jumped down from the truck and made the rounds, handing out candy canes to excited children who quickly gathered around him.

When asked what they liked the best about the event, smiling kids shouted they liked the music, and a couple of others mentioned those big homemade cookies.

The trees – each decorated with dozens of ornaments, including foil-covered bells, Popsicle stick snowflakes, colorful candy canes, snowmen and bears, and many bird friendly peanut butter-and-bird-seed-encrusted pinecones and pretzels – can be seen at various businesses around town, including at Fourth and Maine Pizza and the Hideaway Cafe.