The holiday season begins in Dayton with the three-day Spirit of Christmas celebration starting Friday, Dec. 6. The festivities center around the Nutcracker Market, held at the Dayton Community Center, 801 S. Cleveland St., offering unique gifts, food, and entertainment for all ages.
The Nutcracker Market opens on Friday from 5 to 9 p.m., accompanied by food trucks and Cookie Crawl vendors. Cookie Crawl on Friday is being organized by the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. A map featuring the participating businesses will be posted on the Chamber Facebook page later this week.
On Saturday, the Nutcracker Market will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on Sunday, it will run from noon to 5 p.m. Food trucks will also be available on both Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday’s activities will include Santa’s Workshop and live entertainment throughout the day. At 6 p.m., the Lighted Christmas Parade will take place, followed by a tree lighting ceremony at the community center, led by Mayor Martin Mudd. Additional Saturday attractions include a snow slide, bounce houses, horse-drawn carriage rides, train rides, costumed characters, face painting, balloon twisting, hot chocolate, and visits with Santa, the latter of which will be under the gazebo outside the community center.
On Sunday, visitors can enjoy the Nutcracker Market, a live Nativity scene, live entertainment, as well as the food trucks.
As part of the Spirit of Christmas celebration, a special train ride will be available for the community to enjoy. Local businesses are encouraged to decorate along the train route to enhance the festive atmosphere. The train route will be along S. Cleveland, along Ripkowski St., and back to the community center. This is also the route for the horse-drawn carriage rides.
As for the parade route, entries will line up in the parking lot of Bronco Stadium. They will exit the stadium parking lot on S. Cleveland near Nottingham Elementary. The route will head north to Houston St., east to S. Main, and then south to Entzminger, and then west back to S. Cleveland St.