In light of the City having to cancel Lumenight events, the community is invited to Cranna Lake later this month for winter festivities and fireworks.
On Dec. 22nd, citizens are invited to head down at 6 p.m. to enjoy some skating, tobogganing and hot chocolate in the spirit of the holidays.
Around 7:30 p.m., fireworks will begin and the community is invited to stay after and enjoy activities.
“The ice is now frozen at Cranna and people should be able to skate and toboggan, so we’re encouraging people to come out and do that,” said Guy LaPointe, community economic development manager for the City of Lacombe.
“We’ll have some fire pits to keep everyone warm as well as some hot chocolate from Tim Hortons,” he added.
“Sunny 94 will be on hand to provide some festive music for the scene as well.”
Due to the extreme weather last month, a number of events were cancelled during this year’s Light Up the Night festival.
The world record attempt has been put off until sometime in 2015.
LaPointe said that simply due to resources and the busy nature of the season, it would be unlikely the City could coordinate the efforts needed for the world record attempt.
“It would be challenging right now to find the volunteers and resources to make the world record attempt happen. We really do tie that event into the holidays and Light Up the Night, so to do it in February wouldn’t be the same,” said LaPointe.
The fire-performance and ice sculpting activities that were scheduled for Lumenight have not been rescheduled.
“In terms of Lumenight, (the City) is sort of replacing it with the events at Cranna Lake. Instead of Lumenight, we decided to put on a rather simple event with the fireworks for the community,” said LaPointe.
“We’re hoping to install an ice-slide at the LMC, although the weather hasn’t been accommodating. We have a big lump of snow, but it needs to be soft,” he added.
“The warm weather softened it but the cool temperatures have made it rock solid again.”
LaPointe said the City hopes to be able to use the ice-slide for the rest of the winter season when it’s set up.
He added that initially, it was going to be a part of Light Up the Night, but the City would rather see it go up late than not at all this winter.
“Getting the ice-slide up is weather permitting, but the hope is that once we get it up, we can keep it up for a couple of weeks, if not a couple of months. In the future, maybe that can be something that sticks around in our winter season,” he said.
The events at Cranna Lake will begin at 6 p.m. and will continue into the evening.
The event is open to all ages in the community and is free of charge.
“The kids will be out of school and will likely be climbing the walls at that point.
“We think this will be a nice holiday event and we encourage everybody to come out and enjoy themselves,” said LaPointe.