Monticello Christmas

by Anne Haw Holt

A Story for Santa – Anne Holt

Christmas starts this Friday evening — that’s December 2! Monticello Downtown Christmas is always the first to celebrate this beautiful season. Starting around 5:00 or 5:30 PM the streets just north of the festively decorated Courthouse will be full of families hurrying to the garden at the Wirick-Simmons House to see the lighting of the community Christmas tree and hear the choirs singing old fashioned carols.

Shoppers will be visiting the interesting displays of gifts in our town’s unusual collection of specialty shops. Children will be watching for Santa to arrive on a fire truck.
East Dogwood Street will be full of colorful booths offering everything from the Monticello Women’s Club’s fabulous “Old Fashioned Christmas Fruitcake” to handmade jewelry, books and unusual gifts.
Carolers will stroll by. You may even hear someone reading “T’was the Night Before Christmas.” Children will sit in Santa’s lap as parents take their picture. Many will pose to take a family photo in front of the Community Christmas tree—ask someone to help, you’ll make them happy.
A little later, right in front of the public library on Water Street (two blocks south of Washington St. or Rt. 90) our beautiful live nativity scene, “Bethlehem in Monticello” will open. Children will marvel when they men, women and child actors with live animals bring the real Christmas story to life.

Bethlehem in Monticello Photographs by John Hicks