Editorial: Winter Fest opens door to local Christmas holiday

The Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce is opening the door to the Christmas holidays for the community with its weekend of fun called Winter Fest. The festival is really in fall, since the first day of winter isn’t until Dec. 21, but, it’s cold enough for winter, so let’s not quibble. Burning barrels are planned to keep people warm.
The variety of fun things to do planned by the Chamber lead up the most-popular events of all: the lighted parade at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, followed by fireworks over the lake at about 7:30 p.m.
The BHS Marching Band brings a lot of people out to watch it march and hear it play. The crowd is always big for this parade with lots of lights dangling from people’s necks.
It’s still pretty dark for the parade and you have to look really hard to see who’s in the vehicle or what group is sponsoring which float. The lights on most of the parade entries just aren’t strong enough.
Van Buren Township’s Festival of Holiday Trees will open the Belleville Area Museum to the public on Saturday, as well, after its 1,368-day closure, as of today. There is a private, VIP opening party set for Friday.
Groups that are bringing in trees tell me VBT requires them to decorate their trees in the new, glassed-in area between the museum and old fire hall and then let a VBT man carry it upstairs to the display area. Nobody goes upstairs. Strange stuff.