This year’s Christchurch Christmas Festival takes place on Saturday 29 November and, as last year, there is a whole day of Christmas fun and activities taking place throughout the town.
The Christmas market in the High Street will take place from 10am to 7pm with a variety of food, drink and Christmas gifts for sale. There will be a full programme of music and entertainment throughout the day in Saxon Square and other locations in the Town.
Santaand his reindeer will fly into Peeks Partystore car park in Reid Street at 4.00pm and will process down Bargates to arrive in the High Street at 4.30pm.
Santa will then take his reindeer down to the Priory Church where the reindeer can be petted and children can hand in their Christmas wish letters.
The Christmas lights switch-on will take place in the High Street at the later time of 6pm.
A photography competition for the borough’s three secondary schools will take place with prizes awarded for the best images of the Christmas Festival.
There are significant changes to the organisation and funding for this year’s Christmas Festivalduetoreduced centralgovernmentfundingto ChristchurchCouncil.
Kim Skinner, chairman of the Christmas Festival Committee, said: “In order to preserve this fantastic event for the future, a Community Interest Company(CIC)has been formed and a team of volunteers have picked up the reigns to ensure continuity. We are very grateful to Christchurch Council which has assisted with a one-off transition fund for this year. Howeverin order to guarantee thefuturethe festival needs to becomeself-funding through sponsorship, advertising and other methods.”
VIP entertaining in the Mayor’s Parlour is available this year. Anycompanies wishing to sponsor the events should contact Kim at [email protected].
For more information go to the website christchurch.christmas or on Facebook at christchurchchristmasfestival.
