Hancock will kick off the holiday season this weekend with its annual Christmas walk and a new lights display at the city campground.
The Christmas in Hancock celebration begins Friday with activities on Quincy Street, including visits from Santa and the Grinch. The Hancock Business Association organizes the event to bring holiday spirit to the downtown area.
“There’ll be wagon rides, hot cocoa stations, the businesses will be open and have specials. But the big thing for the city is two years ago, we started closing Quincy Street, which makes it much more family friendly. So this year it’s going to be closed from the 100 block, which is the very beginning of our downtown all the way through by the Q&A co-op because they’re participating with an event down by their store,” said Mary Babcock, Hancock city manager.
The Christmas parade starts in the 100 block of Quincy Street on Friday and ends at city center for the tree lighting ceremony. Sled dog rides will take place on Quincy Green, and cookie decorating will be set up inside the city hall garage.
“The city of Hancock will have a float in there along with the HBA and hopefully some other organizations to add something to welcoming Santa into town,” Babcock said.
Saturday introduces a new tradition as Hancock invites the community to “Light the Night” at the campground starting at 5:30 p.m. Close to 25 businesses and organizations collaborated to create the lights display, including the Copper Country Humane Society and Gino’s Restaurant.
Todd Gast, City of Hancock Downtown Development Authority coordinator, acknowledged the challenges of the inaugural event.
“You’re learning so much when you’re doing this new kind of a project, right? That you think once you get it up and it’ll just work and then you’ve got mother nature out there testing us. But this is a foundation for us. This is going to be our first year doing it and hopefully it’s going to set a foundation for us to make it bigger and brighter next year,” Gast said.
The lights display will brighten up the entire upper loop of the campground with hundreds of thousands of twinkling lights. Babcock emphasized the community effort behind both events.
“It is not a tradition that the city of Hancock can do by ourselves. We really want the community involved with this to make it happen because it is such a large project,” she said. “I think that people will be surprised and excited once they see it.”
Activities for the Hancock Christmas Walk will begin at 5pm. The parade will start at 6pm. Throughout the downtown families, residents and visitors can check out activities. Or sneak into one of the downtown shops to pick out a secret Christmas gift while the family has fun on the Quincy Green.
Hancock Lights the Night will continue to offer a place for the community to get into the holiday spirit with the displays powered from 5:30 pm to 8 pm Thursday through Saturday throughout the holiday season. On December 6th the city will host a special walking tour and a special guest at the campground for some family friendly fun. That event will begin at 5:30 pm.
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