Black Friday may have been the unofficial start of the Christmas season, but for Statesville residents, the yuletide doesn’t really pick up a full head of steam until the Statesville tree is lit at the Civic Center.
And so it is that families like the Reeders of Union Grove mark the event — which took place on Tuesday night — on their calendars.
“It’s an enjoyable way to get the season started off right,” said Todd Reeder. “The kids get to see Santa, and it puts you in the Christmas mood.”
The Reeder children — Taylor, Jared and Carey — planned on asking the big guy for everything from a teddy bear to metal detector to a Rubik’s Cube.
A Rubik’s Cube?
“He just loves all kinds of puzzles,” Todd said of son, Jared.
Dawn Burton’s daughter, Amaya, didn’t want to ask the famed North Pole resident for anything in particular.
“She doesn’t have any expectations about what to get,” Burton said. “But all she has been talking about is Santa Claus. She just really likes Santa.”
Zachary Turner, just shy of 5 months old, was getting his first glimpse of him.
“He’s looking around kind of saying, ‘What is all this stuff?’ ” said Zachary’s mom, Zelda Turner. “He’s never seen anything like this.”
And it was something to see.
Hundreds of people took in the two-hour event, which started at 6:30 p.m. when Statesville Mayor Costi Kutteh, Santa Claus and an elf pulled in the Civic Center parking lot on a kind of golf-cart train.
Kutteh wished the crowd a good holiday. Then he and Santa counted down from five until the switch was hit on the tree, which isn’t a tree in the true sense but more of a tree-shaped array of strings of lights.
Kutteh later explained that Statesville adopted a tradition that used to be carried out by Iredell County officials.
“They used to light a tree down at the county building, and we would support that,” he said. “But, for some reason, they suspended it about five years ago, so we picked it up and have done it ever since.”
Kutteh said the event seems to get bigger each year.
“It’s a pretty big deal, and it looks like more and more people are coming to it,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun and just a good way to kick off the holiday season.”
The tree-lighting ceremony is the first of many events slated for Statesville and Iredell County from now until New Years Eve, including a performance tonight by the North Carolina Symphony.
