Welcome, walk gome welcome and good morning, good morning, morning in time
now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust.
And I tell you what. When we connect with this young leading we
connect with the Bartlesville Chamber of Commerce. Sherry Wild is with us, and
hey doing Sherry the good well, Sherry, We've got just a little something
cook in this week. And I know I bug you to death about this
because it is just it's like my favorite thing. Ah, it's Christmas in
the Ville, Christmas and the oh gosh, there's lots happening this week.
Yes, right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We bring it right here
to Bartlesville de Chamber Depot. We do. We're excited. Lot's happening.
It's been crazy busy all week long. It's all those things that we know,
everything that has to happen, but so much of it can't happen till
the very last minute. So yeah, we're even currently freezing ice still.
So anyhow, it's we're excited, got lots lots happening. We've had riding
crews there, We've had our sound guys there and they put up the trusses
for the overhead lighting. We had a ton of semis and trucks there yesterday
getting everything going. That's kind of well, yeah, and then they made
it another dump truck full of sand and I've got to give a shout out
to the city. Keith Henry got us another truckload of sand within twenty minutes.
I mean, I'm telling you, they are great. But that's how
they kind of level the parking lot. You think it's flat, but it's
not exactly, you know, even, And so there's a layer of sand
that goes under the rink and then they put plastic and then they roll out
all these coils and then they start freezing. And so anyhow, it's a
job. It's a process. It's a job, and it's like dominoes.
This can't happen until this happens, and this has to happen and then that
can happen. And so it's a giant piece. But staff, we've worked
hard to make it pretty, to make it that hallmark feel and decorate and
you know, light trees and fluff trees and all of that. And so
is it my imagination or does it get bigger every year? Just a little
something? We try to add something each year. You know, we only
have so much land, and you know, so much you can do.
But yeah, it seems like it's visually a little brighter every year it is,
You're right, and so we do work on that. And yeah,
there's there's a couple of new things this year, so bolly invite you come
out. Okay, So Friday night is opening night, and it's a giant
community party, is how I kind of like to describe it, because it's
just so fun. There were so many people downtown and we pull out all
the stops for opening night. So the food trucks will be there and these
are all local food trucks, Chamber member food trucks, and we only bring
people that live here, so it's supporting local and so they'll be here starting
about five point thirty and then we have some live entertainment. Jinny Ingle,
if anyone knows her, it's got a beautiful voice, is going to be
doing some live entertainment before the lighting ceremony. And so we'll have entertainment going
on and then at six o'clock we will do our lighting. I hate saying
ceremony, that sounds so formal, but we'll bring up our two lighting sponsors
which I have to give a huge shout out to abb who's been with us
from the very beginning and this year Roger State University, so we really appreciate
them. In fact, they came out and helped us volunteer volunteered before Thanksgiving
fluff and trees and checking lights and all of those kinds of things for us.
We had a crew from local Bartlesville RSU came out. But anyhow,
there are lighting sponsors this year, so we're real excited about that. So
we'll get them up on stage along with our other two major festival sponsors,
which our Perspective Advisors, which once again have been with us from the beginning,
and then Shelley Coster, the Coster team with Keller Wing's Realty. So
we'll do the lighting ceremony countdown at six pm. All the park light,
the giant twenty eight foot tree, and the rink and the train they all
all lit up at one time, and we have something special that happens when
the lights come on, but it's a surprise I'm not going to tell you.
So have that. Then the rink opens officially as soon as the lights
come on, and what else. So we have a downtown merchant crawl going
on that night, hitting some of our local merchants. So we're excited about
that and there's prizes for that. So if you know ice skanning is not
your thing, there's still lots of other things you can do. The Downtown
Merchant Crawl is one. We have movies in the park. We play Christmas
music the movies in the park. We have carriage rights, horse draw carriage
rides, and this year we have a new carriage ride. Provider really excited
about me. He's got a beautiful surrey. It's decorated and lit up and
be really really pretty. So it goes through downtown. And another shout out
to to Knico Phillips and those guys for the it's just so pretty downtown that
whole loop that they make, and there's others that decorate too, but they
really knock it out of the park to make a really pretty train or horse
drong carriage ride loop around through downtown. We have live little top train rides
in this little train that goes up and down Second Street. We have other
year is new we have a living Nativity for opening night. I'm really excited
about this. First Nazarene Church has done a living Nativity in the past,
but this year they're pulling out all the stops and they're gonna have live animals
as well as you know, the characters, and they have an angel choir
going on. I mean, so it's gonna be really I don't know.
I think it's gonna be really just impactful, just kind of a reminder about
the season. So we really appreciate them doing that. There's presence with Perspective
Tent where the kids can shop free for parents or grandparents. We also,
of course have Santa missus claws. We have the best Santa in town,
and of course there is only one Santa, but he comes and this is
Claus and they will be set up and it'll be a perfect photo op.
It's gonna be in front of the barn doors with the giant reefs, surrounded
by trees, and the rest of the season he'll be in the big red
sleigh, but for opening night we have him there and there'll be free print
out pictures. Of course, people can take free pictures all they want on
their own cameras or phones cameras if you're old school, but they also will
have the print outs where you'll get free complimentary printouts and that's thanks to end
Co Electric, so that'll be happened that night. So anyhow, there's lots
and lots happening. It's just a lot of fun. We have free things
that we pass out to kids and different things. So just encourage everybody to
come out opening night from about five point thirty to till nine o'clock when it
closes up, and then after that we will be open for the first three
weekends. Friday and Saturday from six to nine is to the public, and
then Saturday and Sunday's one to nine, and then once school's out on the
twentieth, we're open every day one to nine except for Christmas. We are
close Christmas and we do close at five on Christmas Eve, but other than
that, we're open every day from one to nine where they're permitting, and
forecast looks great so farree days like, well, thank god, we're hitting
a mint sixty five day and a sixty four day the following week. But
hopefully that you know, I thought we can keep up. We have a
bigger chiller this year, so hopefully we'll keep up a little better. But
anyhow, so lot's happening. We also people always want to know where sand
is going to be. We have Santa who will be here on Friday evenings
from six to eight pm all before Christmas obviously, and Saturdays from two to
four and Sundays from two to four and Saturdays from six to eight. So
I know, on the radio it's hard to you know, remember all of
this. But Bartlesville or Bartlesfield Christmas dot com has our horse drawn carriage schedule,
has our Santa schedule, just general information. What are hours of operation
are? If we close, we'll put it on there. Just pretty much
anything you could want information wise. I encourage people to go to Bartlesville Christmas
dot com and it's a website just dedicated to Bartzwel Christmas in the Mill.
So I was on there this morning. It's beautiful. Well thanks, I
mean it's got great photography. Thank you. We do. Yeah, we
trust is a great she's on our staff. She always takes great pictures.
So yeah, she does really good with with pictures and so it it gives
you a real feel for the for the festival, that's for sure. It
does, and it makes you say I want to live here. It is
it's so much fun. I mean, like I said, it's it's we
really try to create kind of a Hallmark movie feel and just it's very wholesome
and just it's We did it kind of as a gift to the community with
ulterior motives, but we wanted to give it to the community so families could
come down and create memories take advantage of all the photo op stops. We
have the giant Ornament still, there's some other great stops that you could take
fun pictures. Last year and it's back this year. We had the old
antique truck with the tree coming out the back and the surrounded by trees,
and I mean people took family photos there. It's a lot of fun.
So we have all of that going on. We also have the Santaltter running
station. I forgot to mention that the little elf hat we call it.
There's a place where kids can write a letter to Santa and if they'll put
their return address and so it kills me. We'll get these letters with no
return address, so Santa can't write back. But if they'll put the return
address on there, Santa will write them back and they'll get a letter back.
And I think we do that through like the twenty third Obviously we don't
do it after Christmas because Santa's back relaxing after Christmas. But anyhow, so
that's kind of another fun, fun stop for the kiddos. So, like
I said, there's lots to do besides just ice skating. Ice skating is
what most people come down for. But you might come down and just want
to walk around, take in the lights, maybe just go for a carriage
ride, just you know, a lot of different things you could do down.
Yeah. Oh that's why I started to say. So. Our terier
motive that I was talking about is we did it as a gift, you
know, so families and you know, kids can come down just have fun,
something to do during the holidays. But what we want is for our
folks to stay here, not go somewhere else to skate, because I'm telling
you, our rink has the most atmosphere and personnel does. Our rank guy
puts in, believe it or not, thirteen rinks all around, and he
has shown me pictures. A lot of them are just like in a parking
lot, which is fine. I mean, it's a nice skating rink,
it's fine, but there's no atmosphere to it. We have, there's no
Yeah, there's no depot, there's no lit train behind, there's no little
vintage village, there's I mean, there's just not a lot of atmosphere.
Ours has so much atmosphere. So we want to we do, we do.
We want our people to stay here and we want people to come to
us, which last year we did. We had great numbers that came obviously
from Southeast Kansas. We love our Southeast Kansas people, but we had people
from Collinsville and Wasow because they've got a real choice. They can go to
Tulsa deal with downtown paid parking blah blah blah, or they can come here
and where it's peaceful, free parking. You may have to walk a block,
but not too far. No, so anyhow, it's just it's and
while they're here, they're gonna shop. They're gonna definitely eat, so our
restaurants, our shops benefit and that's what we want. We want those outside
tax dollars coming into our community. You know something that that little block right
there on Johnstone, they got a corner of the market. They on the
corner almost and then of course some great restaurants and even more candy like stuff.
Oh yeah, Omega Omega Chocolates and the three restaurants right there and not
even further down Cooper Mill and Crossing. Second, I mean the whole community.
The only other way the palace rooms. People forget about that, I
think because it's not right with the strip. But it's walking distance and there's
just a lot of fun, unique restaurants, locally owned for the most part,
restaurants, and we just want people to stop eat here, support our
like I said, local businesses. You know, if you're just coming with
the adults, that palace room, I understand. It's got some pretty nice
nibbles. It does people. It's not, yes, it does. It's
not just a bar. They've got a beautiful bar, but it's the vibe.
The atmosphere is beautiful. They do. We had pizza. We ordered
that for steph lunch just Monday, whatever date. I don't know what day
it is, but ordered ordered in their pizza and their bread and butter board,
which is not what you're thinking when you say bread and butter. It's
like confused better on crusted bread. And it was so good you got to
try it to know what. Yeah, So anyhow, it was really good,
but lots lots of different options for people to go visit. So so
your your work's cut out for you. Yeah, we got lots still to
do, but we're gonna We're gonna be ready for opening night. I remember
a couple of years ago, maybe three or four years ago. I think
it's like the second year we had Christmas in the bill and they said Sherry
available. Uh, she's she's out with the tree. It's a big one.
Last night or yesterday I unpacked two hundred pairs of skates and these giant,
like I don't know, five foot by five foot, that tall four
foot by four foot crate and they're just piled and there I was unloading skates
and putting them in and organizing them. I will get you tired. Oh
man, I'm telling you, I'm feeling it, but not quite as Jones
I used to pave it. You know, there's just a lot of things
people think about. How the skates get here, how do they get on
those shelves? What do we do? You know? I mean, just
you got to clean the hut, because lord knows, we stored a ton
of stuff in it. And just you know, the concessions is open and
thanks to DJ Southern Snowy let's his chose their trailer every year. We appreciate
that there's just so many people. I could go through the list of just
it's one little thing, but it makes such a difference and it just helps
it all come together. I always say, there's so many pieces to this
jigsaw puzzle. It used to be like a fifty piece puzzle and now it's
probably like a hundred piece puzzle. What it takes a bill? It does?
It really does. It's little things. Well, can we find out
more about the chamber? If you want to find more about the chamber,
which we really haven't talked too much about today, go to Bartlesville dot com
and it tells you benefits. You know, our mission, just any questions
we can answer. Judy Williams is great. She's our membership services person.
We'd love to talk to anybody answer questions. We'd love to ring in the
new year with some new members, so we definitely like that. Other than
the build, do we have a couple of items that folks can take part
in before we get into the swing of the holidays or we use Yeah,
I'm worried. Once we went through November buss after Hours and November Women in
business and speed networking. Anyhow, once ours in November, we're done.
I mean it's full on Christmas and we lose our minds if we had to
keep track of something else at this part to make sure. Yeah, no,
thank you. I appreciate that we lost our January with this is after
hours on whatever. The second Thursday, it's usually the first Thursday, but
it'll be the second Thursday, and try County Tech will be hosting that,
so I know it'll be a good one. Oh yeah, Seth'll Seth will
have some yummy food and just it'll be it'll be a good one. But
it'll be that second Thursday, so we can touch base and later December and
I get back on track with what's coming up because we have lots of things.
I have a really good form coming up in February, and any know,
there'll be other things. Women in Business will be back in here and
we'll be back on track with some of the events that you know, people
people like, so alrighty