HOPE — An evening of free and festive fun awaits at the Hope Town Square Friday. Hope’s annual holiday tradition Christmas of Yesteryear, presented by the Yellow Trail Museum and Main Street of Hope, will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday.
“This is the only thing I’m aware of in Bartholomew County that resembles a Hallmark movie,” Yellow Trail Museum volunteer Susan Thayer Fye said. “And I’ve had people come from outside of Hope, the Hope-ites know what to expect, but if they come from outside Hope, they’ll say, ‘I feel like I’m watching a Hallmark movie.’ And I said, ‘then we’ve done well this year.’”
Throughout the evening, visitors can stop by the Yellow Trail Museum for an old-fashioned bake sale, decorate cookies and participate in crafts. All proceeds from the Yellow Trail Museum bake sale will benefit the museum. They can also take a tour through the historic United Methodist Church on Washington Street and view a history presentation about the church, Fye said.
The church tour aspect of the event was added last year as an alternative to their Christmas home tours, where community members would decorate their homes and invite guests to view their house. After COVID-19, Fye said many didn’t want to open their homes anymore, so they began doing tours of decorated churches instead.
She said this new addition was received quite well last year. As the United Methodist Church is one of the older historic buildings in the community and within walking distance of the square, Fye believes it was a good choice to select them this year.
“So it’s a way to get people in the door and to honor the local history, which is really what we do this for,” Fye said.
Other points of interest at the event include roving carolers in costume and a live Nativity with farm animals inside the shelterhouse. Visitors can also watch historic character sketches, starring early settlers of the Hope community, inside WILLow LeaVes of Hope at 6:30 p.m.
“… it’s local names that typically people who came to the community early on when it was settled, and it’s a way to kind of document their history as far as settling the town and it also just highlights some of the things they might have done around Christmas time when Hope was settled,” Fye said.
Businesses around the square and restaurants, including WILLow LeaVes of Hope, AH-HA Corner Cafe and Tonala Mexican Restaurant, will be open during the evening. At 6 p.m., Santa himself will arrive at Frame 55, a new photography studio, where kids can write letters to him.
“… we decided to do Santa there, we wanted to welcome people to their new business which just opened and they are decked out in decorations,” Fye said. “So Santa and Mrs. Claus are going to be in their building this year, which I think that’s a good thing, and they are also in costume, so they’re in historic costume. And that’s been a real hit in the past, of course.”
