Dear editor,
The city of Milton needs to decide if the Christmas festivities the first Friday in December are a way to entertain people with a movie or a way to get people out and about in downtown Milton.
Years ago, it was the latter. I remember having to thread my way through crowds of people on Willing Street. All over downtown Milton, there were retail businesses, offices, churches and restaurants open.
There was so much to do it was hard to fit it all in the three hours. Each place had music or an artist; the businesses also offered refreshments. The museum and the Imogene were open. There were a living nativity and people in costume wandering Willing Street.
This year there was almost none of that. There was a crowd of people watching the movie down by the river. There was another crowd of people on the corner of Willing Street watching the children sing and some of these people went next door for pizza. I imagine some of these people stayed for the boat parade, but I know a lot left before the parade (and even the lighted boat parade wasn't what it used to be).
Instead of being a vibrant event that got people moving all around downtown Milton, the rest of downtown Milton was as dead as a doornail.
Instead of having a couple of dozen places open, there were only four.
The two churches that had bazaars and the only two retail business that were open — Camelot Junction and Simply Southern — saw practically no foot traffic because there wasn't anything to draw people to them.
The printed program showed that the Dragonfly Gallery was supposed to be open — it was closed — and there were supposed to be booths on north Willing Street (there weren't any).
Not a single office opened.
Even the cafe on Willing Street, who did packed business all evening last year, didn't bother to open — and wouldn't have done well since practically no one walked to that end of the street as there was nothing to get people off the corner.
No living nativity, no walking puppet theater, no people in Victorian costume, no museum, no Imogene.
When I mentioned the festivities to a couple of businesses and they didn't even know it was happening, it's clear that the city of Milton has given up on even trying to get the rest of the downtown community involved.
I don't know what's happened to the Christmas festivities in Milton through the years. It's gone from a huge, vibrant event that encompassed all of historic downtown Milton to a movie and chorus night.
The question is — does the city of Milton want it to stay that way?
MARGARET ALBRECHT
Pensacola
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: What happened to Milton’s Christmas festivities?