By Alex Kramer
If the holiday shopping season hasn’t had downtown bubbling with customers already, maybe a long list of Christmas-themed activities will.
Every Saturday from now until Dec. 19, the Iowa City Downtown District will host events for ’Tis The Season, formerly known as Celebrate the Season.
“In the past, it was a one-day event,” said Betsy Potter, operations director of the Downtown District. “Because of the great attendance, we decided last year to make it a multi-weekend event. We expanded the activities so if you were busy that weekend or the weather wasn’t great, you’d have more of an opportunity to come down and enjoy them.”
Every Saturday, activities will be held including horse-drawn trolley rides downtown, a free gift-wrapping station, Santa Saturdays for kids, and a Hunt for the Elves — which more than 40 local businesses are involved in — alongside various, smaller activities throughout the month.
The Hunt for the Elves is a downtown-wide scavenger hunt for kids to find the 35 “Elves on a Shelf” hidden is businesses for prizes. All the events are designed to work well together, Potter said.
“It’s a good time to come downtown and do some holiday shopping, and these activities are just kind of a good excuse to stay a little longer,” she said.
FilmScene will host Santa Claus on Saturdays for the second year, as well as a semi-permanent home for the North Pole.
“For us, Santa is a huge draw because there are a lot of families coming in for those free photographs,” said Joe Tiefenthaler, executive director of FilmScene. “We get that wonderful, special little thing.”
Tiefenthaler said the response last year was enormous, and all the work, cooperation, and partnership has paid off.
“I think it’s just a fun way to get some families and community members running around, and into stores they might not necessarily have ever been to or going in and looking at for the first time,” he said. “Kids get to collect prizes and do that fun treasure hunt, but then they also get to see a lot of the wonderful downtown businesses. So we just had to jump at being a part of that.”
Jan Weissmiller, a co-owner of Prairie Lights, said it’s not the crazy, impersonal experience found in most shopping malls.
“The money that’s spent in all the downtown stores stays in the local economy, so it’s good for everybody,” she said. “We believe in shopping locally, and all the stores downtown have been working together really well, I think, to provide a varied and personal experience for shoppers.”
