This Friday promises to once again be a busy but exciting day in Perry, with the annual Lighted Holiday Parade, followed by the Holiday Extravaganza.

The latter event will be held at La Poste immediately following the parade, and will include music performances in the Cellar by the St. Patrick’s Youth Singers, the Perry High School Select Choir, and Shannon and Cindi Bryan. In the main gallery, there will be cookies provided by Harvey’s at Hotel Pattee, letters to Santa, family pictures with a sleigh, and of course Santa himself. Additionally, the Xi Pi Women’s Service Sorority will be selling live wreaths and swags in the gallery as a fundraiser for the organization. There will also be carolers downtown and hot chocolate at Perry Perk.

La Poste Co-Owner and event organizer Jenny Eklund is excited for this year’s festivities. She points out, everything will once again be focused to a single venue, after they tried branching out last year. “When the Chamber came to me a couple years ago and asked me to do it, there was a lot of frustrations and hiccups and things like that. And I said, ‘Sure.’ So I tackled it from beginning to end and it was all here. Huge success. Huge. Then the next year comes up and they decided, ‘Why don’t we just kind of spread this out and see, you know, if we can maybe not make it so packed here at La Poste?’ Well, by doing that it didn’t have the ‘oomph.’ It kind of lost the ‘oomph.’ And so they asked me if I would bring it back here.”

Eklund adds, in spite of the hub for the celebration being at La Poste, the public is also invited to the Carnegie Library Museum to view the Festival of Trees, which will run from 6-8 p.m. To learn more about the Perry Holiday Extravaganza, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on air and at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.