ELIZABETHTOWN – The Holly Jolly Christmas Show put together by Maurice Williams once again saw packed out crowds for the three day holiday event at Whimsical Florist & Gifts.
While find things and flowers and Christmas like they’ve never seen it, this was more of a carnival setting with over 20 holiday vendors.
There were many schools that bussed kids over to Elizabethtown from Lumberton to meet Santa on Friday morning, color at the coloring stations, and enjoy cookies and lunch. There were also schools from within Elizabethtown as well as many families that went to the festivities for the Sunday Santa.
One of the big hits for the holiday show was face painting and the amazing crafts that you could find nowhere else but at that specific show.
The Whimsical was… whimsical as it was decked out from floor to ceiling with Christmas decorations, flowers, bows, trees and other gifts. On Friday and Saturday the doors were open at 10 a.m. and stayed open until 6 p.m. The Sunday grand finale was open at 11 a.m. and closed at 3 p.m.
It was a very busy time for Williams and his staff which were also working on funerals at the same time.
“We started this whole thing the year COVID was in force,” Williams said. “They had cancelled the Holly Day in Fayetteville. Although COVID let up a little, it was still cancelled. It was then I knew that I was going to do something. I got with Hope Campbell to see if I could use the building that was beside of the (Elizabethtown) Post Office. Her dad advised me to wait until the Goody’s building went out of business. So I said that I could do that.”
Williams was going to do a big Christmas show for himself, but looked around at the size and realized that the holiday dream could be expanded and it was spacious enough to hold multiple vendors.
“So I started posting on Facebook; ‘Vendors wanted;’” Williams said. “That first year we had probably 22 vendors or so. On opening morning I had people waiting at the door to get in. We had hand sanitizing stations, masks that we were giving out at the door, temperature checks at the door and we were really cautious.”
That year they had the best attendance ever with people finally finding an excuse to get out and a large venue that would allow it.
“This year was our sixth year doing it,” he said.
There was a $5 entry fee which went entirely to provide nursing scholarships through the India Alexus McLaurin Foundation.
There were photos in the 11/18 issue of the Bladen Journal on the photo page and there were over 200 photos added to Facebook.