Decking the halls and everywhere else for the holidays

News

by Max Marbut

Staff Writer

In most cases, the start date for holiday decorating isn’t much, if at all, until the Thanksgiving turkey is but a shell of its former self. It isn’t like that at all for the staff at the Landing.

“We start getting everything ready immediately after the Florida-Georgia weekend,” said Landing Public Relations Director Rachel Nudge. “We have to start early for the holidays to begin here the day after Thanksgiving.”

That has, for the past 23 years, been the evening of the lighting of Downtown’s largest Christmas tree, an event witnessed each year by thousands of people in person and an even larger audience watching on television when the switch is flipped.

The planning part of the holiday celebration actually begins long before the end of October. In September, the invitations go out to hundreds of public and private school choruses and other holiday-themed performers. The schedule of more than 100 lunchtime and evening shows in front of the tree fills up quickly, said Nudge.

Performing at the Landing during the holidays has been a tradition so long that, “Now we have people who sang in front of the tree when they were kids bringing their children to sing in front of the tree,” she added.

The largest single display, of course, is the tree. This marks the second year for the environmentally-friendly artificial Tannenbaum. No matter whether the tree was harvested in North Carolina, trucked to Jacksonville and installed by backing a semi-truck through the breezeway as in the past or assembling the frame and attaching the branches, it’s an involved process.

Last week 56 interlocking components that are the skeleton of the display were laid out and organized. According to Michael Chambliss, the Landing’s marketing director who was supervising the process, it looks complicated but it’s not.

“It’s very similar to putting together an artificial tree at home. Just insert tab A into slot B,” he said. Just like at home except it’s a four or five day job and it begins today.

When the tree is complete, it’s 56 feet tall with more than 78,000 LEDs that light up the night on the Northbank each evening through New Year’s Eve.

Indoors, the Landing has retained the services of an artist who will create several holiday window displays between Nine West and the Toy Factory.

Maryann Merritt has also been planning her displays for months. This year’s themes will include a salute to Jacksonville’s military community and winter wonderland that Merritt predicted will be “as close to snow as we’ll get.”

She said one of her favorites will be the “Night Before Christmas” window.

“I’m trying to take the look and feel back to the old days and a simpler time,” she said then added, “This project makes me feel like a kid again and it’s the best way for me to enjoy the wonder of the holidays.”