JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
The Holly Dickens Festival
all right. I'll tell you, I make one little mistake. I got Brian yelling at me. Danielle's coming off of a sickness. She's on steroids playing macho man Randy Savage today. We'll do we'll talk about Ukraine coming up. We'll talk about Ukraine coming up at three in the three o'clock hour, three 18. We'll talk about it. We're going to do a much fun or much more fun story now, because the Holly Dickens Festival is going on just under an hour away from where we're at in Holly and tons of things to do. And it's a year yearly tradition around the holidays. Jerome Raska is the director of the Holly Dickens Festival and joins me this afternoon. Jerome, it's great to have you. Oh, I'm happy to be here. What a this is an absolute staple of this time of year. Yes, it sure is. It's our 51st annual Holly Dickens Festival. And I want you to tell us a little bit about what this festival is from a historic perspective and why so many people flock to it every year. Well, first of all, it's the holiday season. And if you need to if you need a little jumpstart in that holiday spirit, what better place to go than to Holly Michigan, you know, Holly for the holidays is what we like to say. And the the Dickens Fest itself was started 51 years ago by a group of local merchants simply to bring more business to the local business community. Our downtown, our Victorian buildings, the cointness of the downtown is lined with unique and fun little shops for, you know, holiday shopping or year round shopping. We have festivals year round, but this time of year, particularly the, you know, the warmth of the community and the little shops. And then with the festival, we bring in even more and we have vendors lining the street and we've had chestnuts roasting on open fires. We got horse and carriage rides. It's it's truly all the sounds in the fields of the season to just put you in the spirit. Well, and everything is family friendly, right? So so people can bring their kids. And if there's a little bit of snow, you know, you got you got sledding there, Santa's train, you've got people can take pictures with the big fella, you can write your your wish list to him as well. And and I think that's what makes it all so special, right? It's it's an all encompassing feeling that that the Holly Dickens festival provides to people. It certainly is. It's definitely family friendly. It's also a great destination for those that might not have little ones still at home. We attract a lot of people that just want to come out and get in the holiday spirit. We have what we call a reef walk and many of our businesses participated and decorated reefs in their businesses and they're all available for purchase to help support the festival because I don't think I mentioned, but this festival is run by all volunteers. This is a volunteer based organization and without the 50 plus volunteers that help put this festival on annually. We wouldn't have one. So it's truly a group of dedicated folks and we encourage people to come and join in the fun. We actually have which I find very unique because I I've been to a lot of other festivals and I have not seen this. We have a costume closet, if you will. So it's a wardrobe area that you can gather some of your friends or even just you and your family. Come on up, go to the costume area. They'll fit you in period clothing and you can stroll the streets dressed in Victorian clothing. It's super fun and you get an audience with Queen Victoria if you want to. You can do that too and she's a licensed officiant. So if anyone's looking to make it real serious, they can do that as well during the festival or they can just renew their vows. There's packages available on our website that they can sign up for Holly Dickens festival.org. That is very, very cool. What goes into the planning process because it is I think what makes this festival so special is that you've got people in the community putting it on. So it is a true community event. You mentioned the volunteers. But what what goes into the planning of this because I can't imagine you start planning in September. We know we start planning in January. So we will have right after holidays, we have our first get together. We kind of talk about all the good, the bad, the ugly and figure out because our goal is to make it a little bit better and a little bit more improved each year and that's how it's got to where it is today. The leadership prior to my being involved has been amazing and has brought it this far and I'm just helping carry the torch to take it on a little bit further. And truly, these dedicated individuals, it's unbelievable the amount of hours they put in all year long because we have work weekends where we're repairing some of our little chalet sheds that we have vendors in and things like that. Things need repair. Things need to be painted. Just the fresh look. We do that all summer long. Well, and I think it shows. I was there a couple of years ago. We had a blast and it only gets, it gets better and better every year. So things started kicked off last weekend. What's the what's the schedule now moving forward? Well, obviously for this Saturday and Sunday and the following Saturday and Sunday, the best place is to go to our website, hollydickensfeffible.org for all the detailed lists. I do also want to remind everyone that we do offer a free shuttle. So if you park at the elementary school or the Presbyterian Church on Maple Street coming into town, there's a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes, both days of the festivals. And also, a lot of times people don't understand this. There's no admission fee. This is a free festival. You can come, bring your family, enjoy. Obviously, we do have donation boxes throughout if people feel so inclined to help offset some of the costs. We appreciate contributions. You can use the memo, PayPal or plain old cash, either one. But outside of that, it's a free festival. And we just encourage people to come, get in the holiday spirit and enjoy, you know, our beautiful town of Holly. Holly at the at the holidays is what we like. Week two, starting Saturday, the theme decked out for Dickens, week three. God bless us. Everyone that's the 14th and the 15th. So great things, great food, great fun to have for everybody. Bring the whole family down to to Holly for Holly Dickens Festival. Jerome Raska, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Stay warm out there and have a great festival. And I wanted to mention we have a plenty of activities that go on indoors. So if we have another cold weekend, don't hesitate to come out. There's plenty of things going on. You can go in and warm up. Really good stuff. Jerome, thank you for your time. Appreciate you. Happy holidays. Yeah, happy holidays to you as well. All right. Coming up in the three o'clock hour, we will talk about what is unfolding in Ukraine. And from the perspective of somebody who has been there, somebody who has spent extensive time in Ukraine during this conflict with Russia, because some really substantial decisions, particularly on the United States side of things has maybe changed this, this war and change this conflict. The use of US long-range missiles into Russian territory certainly changes things. Russia becoming more emboldened. We'll talk about that in the three o'clock hours. We continue here on Jay afternoon. [BLANK_AUDIO]
December 4, 2024 ~ Chris talks with Jerome Raska, Director of the Holly Dickens Festival in Holly, Michigan. If you LOVE Christmas, the Holly Dickens Festival is a place you NEED to visit!