Shiner celebrates inaugural tree lighting festival

The City of Shiner held its first community Christmas tree lighting festival on Dec. 2.
The event kicked off with a visit from Santa for the kids. There were arts and crafts for the children to take part in, right after they spoke to Santa.
“The turnout was great, everybody I talked to was having a great time,” planning coordinator Mario Gamez said. “We had made nearly 100 goodie bags for the kids and we probably had just as many kids come and talk to Santa.
There were at least 400 people in attendance. Everyone was having a great time. Even after we lit the tree, people were hanging around and enjoying themselves.”
Winners of the 4th grade essay contests were announced right after the visit from Santa. The prompt was what does Christmas in Shiner mean to them. The winners were Adela Machart, daughter of Michael and Angel Machart, from Shiner Elementary and Kace Kocian, son of Tommy and Courtney Kocian from Shiner Catholic School. Each student got a $100 Visa gift card.
Once the winners were announced, the lighting of the Christmas tree and street dance began. Music from a local Shiner band, Mid-life Crisis, went on throughout the night. Mid-life Crisis calls themselves the “premiere dad’s garage band of Shiner.” Folks got their groove on, and beer was served downtown.
This event was all made possible by the city and community, according to Gamez.
“I went around and talked to the local businesses and city council gave us a $10,000 donation from the Wolters fund,” Gamez said. “That was the first step and then we ordered a tree costing around $20,000.”
Gamez hopes to see more people come together for what’s planned as a future annual event.
“We’re going to try and continue doing this in the future,” Gamez said. “Hopefully next year, we’ll have another street dance and then we’ll add some more activities for the kids. What we’d like to see is more local businesses participating and send more donations. The tree was 20 feet, but next year we would like to have a larger tree. We thank all our sponsors and hope to see everyone again next year.”