ASHLAND — The Ashland Christmas Village is set to kick off on Corner Park Monday at 6 p.m.
The Ashland Christmas Village, a group under the authority of the City of Ashland, will be available to visit from 6-8 p.m. on Dec. 11, 16, 20 and 22.
Kelsey Coffy, one of seven committee members who work to organize the village, said this year will bring pictures with Santa, a live Nativity scene, cookies, hot chocolate, live reindeer, an inflatable snow globe for kids to jump around in, face painting and temporary tattoos.
“Oh, and Mrs. Claus, she has a chateau this year. She’ll be reading Christmas stories in there to the kids,” Coffy said.
And it’s all for free. The events are sponsored by local businesses.
“We want it to be magical — for it to feel like a whole other village, which is why we called it the Ashland Christmas Village,” she said.
Currently, the organizing committee is under the city, but Coffy hopes to keep building onto the village in the future and for it to one day become its own nonprofit.
“Our goal is to add as much as we can without it becoming too much. To have more sponsors to give away more things, and to just bring a lot of smiles downtown,” she said.
Coffy said the committee always seeks official permission to use the park from the county. (Corner Park is a county-owned property.)
Ashland County commissioners created a new rule in October that limits the use of Corner Park to three consecutive days and a total of three days in any given month.
Coffy said the Ashland Christmas Village did not have any trouble getting the green light to use the park for four days this month.
“It was an easy ‘yes’ for (the county),” Coffy said.