All right, we've got Kevin McDougall from 5K events is here. And even though it's winter
time, the events don't stop. They keep rolling. They just keep on coming. The beat goes on.
Sure do. And the St. Nick's Festival of Trees going on at Festival Hall. And we're
coming near the, I can't believe it was near the end of it already. But yeah, it's going
fast. It started in late November. Yeah, it did. We had the opening day was November 22nd,
you know, right before Thanksgiving. So yeah, we're just cruising along a lot of great events.
The attendance has been amazing. The, if you haven't been, you got to get down there in the
next few days. The trees are amazing that the, all the sponsors did, you know, each one of them
has their own unique flavor, you know, based on their organization or their company. And they're
all amazing. Everyone, everyone's done an incredible job with it. So we bought a tree from,
I guess one of your sponsors on here. Yeah, I never had a Christmas tree in my entire life to
like a married and my wife went to Milliger's got the Christmas tree and it was all pre-done.
And it's the same tree. Now the lights have to be replaced, but they put it in such a way where
it doesn't, these things don't fall off. No, it was such a beautiful tree. So we just covered
up and bringing it out every year. Yeah, that's, they're great trees. So we did get them through
Milliger's and then a few of the tree sponsors contracted Milliger's to decorate the trees for them.
You know, the Milliger's tree is amazing. As you would suspect, it's a, a Grinch centric tree
that is pretty incredible, but they also decorated the Rusing Country Club tree, the yard arm tree.
And there's one other one they did, but, but all the organizations have done an amazing job.
They're just so incredible to go through and look at them. Sometimes I just leave my office and
walk through and I haven't looked at this one in a while and notice some of the unique aspects of
them all. So a little Kevin comes out. Yeah, and always he's a little boy coming out. Kevin,
a little beard, a little gray hair, a little boy comes out and relapses Christmas of Christmas fast.
Okay, so now people can bid on these trees, right? Yeah, definitely there. We're raffling them off.
We will do the drawings Saturday afternoon during the St. Nicholas Day celebration, but,
you know, you come out between now and then it's a $5 ticket for the trees, drop it in the bucket
of the one you're interested in and the proceeds from each of the trees go to the individual charity
designated by the sponsor. So there's not one overarching charity. It's whatever's important to
that tree's sponsor is where those proceeds go. Well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was
kind of a new way to do it. And then you all the tree away and set it up in your living room.
You definitely will. Once we do the drawing on Saturday afternoon, we'll be
notifying everybody who won and set up pickup times and then everything like that. So
I'm going to do when I get home. I'm going to schlep up that Christmas tree from the basement.
Yeah. I mean, it's all done. All you do is have to carry it upstairs and being as lazy as I am.
That's like a, that's like a week's project. Yeah, we finally put ours up Sunday after I got
done, you know, blowing the snow out. So yeah, my wife said, yeah, I never had a Christmas tree
in my entire life. And she went out to millegers and just said, I'm going to buy the best tree I can find.
Yeah. And she did. And we still have it after 19 years. Yeah. It's the technology of the trees
have come along so far. I mean, I love not having the string lights on the tree. But these trees
we got from millegers, you know, they have a foot switch that you can change it from color lights to
white lights. They twinkle. They rotate. Then it also come with a little handheld remote too.
If you don't want to get up off the sofa and hit the clicker, you can do that too. So
they're pretty incredible. And so yeah, we've got a few more days of events left. You know,
tonight is our Christmas magic show at festival hall presented by the LeBuff Brothers Magic.
And then Friday tomorrow, we have actually two events going on at Racine Civic Center. We have
the Caledonia Conservancy wine tasting. And then that is a ticket event. And then we also have
the Racine Symphony Orchestra doing their holiday concert at Memorial Hall on Friday.
What does talk about St. Nicholas Day? Yes, St. Nicholas Day is one of those, you know,
traditions where, you know, shortly before Christmas, the kids get a little gift.
The tradition used to originated where kids would put their shoes out and they'd get like an orange
and some little chocolate coins and things like that, just little small gifts. And the funny thing
about it, you know, I never knew about St. Nicholas Day until I started working at a Milwaukee
radio station in the mid 90s. And what is the St. Nicholas Day thing? I thought it was,
I'm being a really bad parent, jipping out my kids like this. Unfortunately, they never asked.
So, but, but yeah, it's something that it's a tradition that we're going to start. And yeah,
we're really looking forward to it. We have a private event with Jockey until two o'clock on Saturday.
But then after two o'clock, we're open, open to the public from two to six for St. Nicholas Day.
Here are kids who grew up with their kids and say, my daddy didn't know anything about St. Nicholas
Day. I'm going to treat you different. I grew up like a child who didn't have St. Nicholas Day,
but you're not going to grow up like that. I don't think my grandkids do. Well, my, my,
my kids, they don't do it either. So, well, this was a great month. Whoa. I'm looking at this down.
You just really nailed it with this. No thanks. St. Nicholas Festival of St. Nicholas Festival of
Trees. Yeah. And, you know, we, of course, couldn't do it without, you know, the sponsors,
you mentioned milligers, but, you know, Amazon or a healthcare, the local culverts,
franchisee, the general times of visit, Racine County, and then enjoy Mount Pleasant. We're
all amazing sponsors, plus all the individual tree and wreath sponsors is just a who's who of,
you know, amazing businesses here in Racine, Racine County. That's really nice. Yeah,
it's been amazing. Yeah. And we look forward to an even bigger year next year for it.
Kevin McDougall from five K events joining us as he does every month. And you're putting the
big wrap on St. Nicholas Festival of Trees for people that didn't hear today. It's Christmas
magic 6 p.m. a magic show. Yes. By the, the LeBuff brothers are presenting the magic show.
They call the trees disappeared. I'm like that. Well, they will disappear on Saturday once
they're all raffled off. So, that's good. It's one of those long range tricks. Now, tomorrow,
it's a double header. You've got the wine tasting from the Caledonian Conservancy and a concert.
Yeah, we have the Racine Symphony Orchestra doing their holiday pops concert at memorial hall.
So it's great to have them back because that's what, you know, Memorial Hall should be used for,
you know, concerts and things like that. So looking forward to that event tomorrow night.
I told you that's how I proposed my wife. Greg Berg was the MC for the Racine Symphony Orchestra.
And he couldn't make it. Today asked me, can I do it? Yeah, my talk. So I got my talk to my wife,
my girlfriend came with me. And we arranged with the orchestra to stay on stage at an
intermission. Don't walk off yet. And then in front of the French delegation and everybody else
was in the room. I said, Terry, can you come over here a second? And she came on stage shaking
like a leaf. What? She didn't see it coming. She knew some day. I was going to come
the way. And I got that on one. The end I proposed to her. She said, yes, I gave her the ring.
And as soon as she walked off all the women, let me see. Let me see. It was in the most expansive
ring when it wasn't a cheap one. So that's good because they'll still look back and go,
ah, that's what you say. Yes. You know, what if what is said? No. Well, that's a thing.
You haven't know the answer before you do that. That's all like that. Yeah, right. I was like,
walk, walk, walk. And then you walk off stage with your head down. Enjoy the rest of the show.
Talk between your legs and your walk off. And then that's the story that they tell forever.
We're at this, uh, Symphony Show and this guy has this lady to marry. And she said, no,
with an explanation point. Yeah. It's the longest walk in history off that stage. Don,
can we talk about this after the show? Oh, man, I get chills of what could have been.
Okay. So the wine tasting. You've got the Symphony Orchestra, December 5th. And finally,
on December 6th, they wrap it up with St. Nicholas Day on Saturday. Now, this is a private event
at the 2 p.m. But after 2 p.m. You open the floodgates. Yes, we do. And then we want all the
all the parents to bring the kids down and one last shot to buy raffle tickets for the trees.
And then we also have some some great prize baskets that were raffling off as well. And the drawings
will be done on those. I believe on Sunday, we'll do the drawings for those. And then
everyone will be notified early next week with they've won and be given times to come pick
everything up. So how did you pull off Thanksgiving? We're singing with all those trees there.
You know, it was just a great little kind of accent to it. How did you would you
move everything out of the way? No, actually, we kept everything where it was and it worked really
well. You know, fortunately, you know, the pods with the trees are just around the outside
edge of the carpeted area at festival hall. So it really didn't take away from how many tables
we were able to put up or anything like that. So it worked really well. And we served a lot of
folks that day. And so that's that's an amazing event. If you've never been, it is just amazing
the way it comes together. Well, Danny made a live YouTube thing. I was watching it. And Danny
from Danny's meets. Right. I was watching it. And you see the people waiting in the
hallway there, the best of people, wherever you want to call it. And they're waiting and then
the floodgates opened up and they were very nice. They formed a line. Yep. But you didn't have to
be poured. Anybody can do that. That's anybody can. And that's kind of the misconception that
folks have about it. If you're disadvantaged in any way, or if you're just, you know, your
families out of town, or maybe you don't have family in town or or whatever, then you just want
to enjoy some Thanksgiving fellowship. That's it's a great, it's a great event. So it's for everyone
open to the public. Looking ahead to next year, a brand new event with a brand new venue there.
We've got the farmer's market. Yeah. The farmer's market is going to be the centerpiece of everything
we do at festival park next, starting next spring on May 9th and running through around October
34. Yeah, man. Oh, it's nine. It's eight degrees. All the 30 piles of snow will be gone.
But you might recall, you know, listeners might recall last month, we had Don Carillo,
who is our market manager, who's got a years of experience running these types of markets and
creak in other places is our leader on this thing. And we're just so excited about it.
It's going to be a true farmer's market, fresh fruits, vegetables, homemade goods, things of
that nature. So it'll be Saturdays from nine to one and open to the public, of course, but just
all kinds of different, you know, fun activities that'll be happening for kids and some discounts
for seniors that'll be available, working on connecting some of the federal programs that,
you know, help folks that need food assistance. So we're working on those things and that'll
come to fruition and just really excited about it. And like I said, that's going to be the centerpiece
of everything we do at festival park next next year. And of course, you got the routine concert
pan. The routine concert ban will be back. So we'll see each other on Sunday nights and we're
working on the exact these exact times. The times are going to shift a little bit. And the exact
venue, the exact staging, we're still, you know, working with Sean and Mark on so, but it's going
to happen and they'll be back for the second season. Ah, yeah. Hot Harbor nights. So we'll be
doing again on Thursday nights. So that's our free concert in the park series. We'll be doing
on Thursday nights. But then in and amongst all those things, Sam and Arama will be back in July.
Fish fast. Fish fast. Or as affectionately known slam and Arama. But Harbor Fest will be back
June 12th and 13th. What else? Oh, um, some of your listeners may know that a lot of the
scene Catholic churches have consolidated and they all had their own individual festivals.
Well, now they're all combining to one big festival. I didn't know that called All Saints Fest,
which is going to be at Festival Park June 26th or the 28th. So like St. Rita's and all these
churches. Oh, I didn't know that St. Rita's like, I don't want to get all the names of the churches
wrong. But, um, but the ones that have consolidated are all doing one big festival. That's kind of
me. Yeah. So we're excited about that. And just so many other things that that we're working on.
Those are the things that, you know, kind of the tried and true things that carry over a year to
year. But, you know, inserting new things, of course, you will have Juneteenth celebrations. And
in all of those types of things, we'll continue the lighthouse run, which is, you know, our big run
for the year that we do. I like watching that. That's good. I do too. Watching it. I love
sitting on my porch or wherever it and watching it. I like giving the folks their bananas and
what not as they return. You'll better waving to them. Say go. Yeah. Yeah. I never wanted to run
more than 100 yards at a time when I when I played football. So, uh, yeah. And I don't get the
whole long distance running thing, but God bless them. So I don't get it either. That's what my cars
were. You know, I watched an old Dick Van Dyke episode. Eddie Hodges was on there. And he's doing
track in school. And he's leaving the track team. Uh-huh. And Rob said, why are you leaving the track team?
You're so good at it. He said, I've been running for two years. And where am I? Back where I started.
Yeah. Yeah. He said, at least I was going in a straight line and be somewhere. Sure. Sure.
Well, this is great. We at last time your last month, we did get a person texted us and say
they're glad to see Festival Park back again doing all these activities. So kudos to you guys.
Thank you. Yeah. That's a lot of the the kind words that we're getting from folks more more
often than not. Uh, that's what we hear that they're happy that the the venues are vibrant again.
And having, uh, you know, events that people can come down and it also helps, you know, drive
visits to the restaurants and the retailers and downtown are seen. So it really everything kind of
works hand in hand. So okay, give the website address festivalpark dot com. So if you're
it's easy to remember easy. It's not festival hall. It's festival park. That's dot com. So if you,
if you want to look at anything we talked about festival park dot com festival park dot com.
See you next month. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Hopefully you'll be a little warmer. I don't think so.
It's January might be colder. It's not even winter yet. No technically. It's still fall.
