Holly Days are here

With the flick of a switch, Queen Street blazed with light as the community's Christmas tree was lit to kick off the second annual Holly Day Celebration in downtown Kinston.

Trees along both sides of Queen Streets were strung with lights, leading from the grounds of the Lenoir County Courthouse where residents gathered for the lighting of the tree.

The street celebration included food, hot drinks, horse carriage and trolley rides for children, music and holiday shopping.

"It turned out to be a great party," said Pride of Kinston Executive Director Adrian King.

Pride worked with the Parks and Recreation Department, Chamber of Commerce, Community Council for the Arts, library, the city, the county, local churches and Herritage Street merchants to put on the celebration.

Cathy Bass, owner of The Briary at Herritage Landing gift and home décor shop, said having children's activities on Herritage steered many more customers to those stores.

"For the economy right now, I think it's really good," Bass said of the traffic flow at her business.

Shoppers who patronized participating stores received a 10 percent discount.

Kelly Putnam and Scott Wooten of Kinston said Holly Day was a great opportunity to bring people to downtown Kinston.

"If they keep this going around here, they could get a lot more people down here," Wooten said. "I mean, look at Sand in the Streets."

Putnam added: "Oh yeah, things like this, they're great for the kids."

Her 4-year-old son Evan played with a balloon animal and jumped around as Putnam talked.

"The train!" he said when asked what his favorite thing was at Holly Day. "The train, the train, the train!"

Wooten's 13-year-old son Vincent, a member of Boy Scout Troop 424, admired the obvious effort and cooperation that had gone into putting the event together, and suggested involving Boy Scouts in the planning for future Holly Days.

"It'd be a great service project (for us)," he said.