Fair Grove Hosts Annual Christmas Events

Each year in the small town of Fair Grove, there are many festivities led by various members and groups of the community that happen during the holiday season.

On December 3, 2022, the Fair Grove holiday season was kicked off with the first festive event, ‘Breakfast with Santa.’ This was held by Care to Learn, and for a small fee, people could talk to Santa and eat some delicious breakfast with it. There was biscuits, gravy, pancakes, sausage, and orange juice to enjoy. The breakfast was held that morning, and the entire community was invited to the middle school commons to celebrate the holidays. Oakland-Wayne Morrison (11) attended and helped run the event. Morrison mentioned, “I really enjoyed seeing all the little kids light up when they saw Santa sitting in his chair.”

Following the Breakfast with Santa, there was an annual Christmas Walk held at the Fair Grove Park. The walk started at 3 p.m and participants were highly encouraged to dress in their most festive attire. Fair Grove High School NHS volunteered to help run the event, and help judge the participants. This was sponsored by Megan’s Bake Shop, which supplied the participants with various cookies, hot chocolate, and candy canes.

Later that evening on December 3, was the Fair Grove Annual Christmas Parade and Christmas Tree Lighting. The parade began at 5 p.m and lasted roughly until 6 p.m. In the parade were floats from various clubs and organizations within the Fair Grove community. Jeri Mcdougal (11), a Fair Grove cheerleader has participated in the annual parade for the past two years. This year, to prepare for the parade, she helped to create the float by painting, glittering, and cutting out designs and decorations for the float during a practice. Mcdougal’s favorite part of being involved in the parade is, “riding on the float and seeing the kids get excited when there was candy thrown towards them or they got a hot chocolate ‘gold ticket’.” Directly following the parade was the Christmas Tree Lighting, held at the Fair Grove Mill.

The following week, December 6-9 was the annual Christmas Holiday Shop, run by PTO. This holiday shop is run to provide an opportunity for elementary kids to experience shopping for presents to gift their family members and friends during the holidays. Cooper Zumwalt (12)  has been participating in the Holiday Shop since Elementary School, when he shopped there. During the shop, he helped the elementary students to pick out gifts for their family members, as well as wrap the gifts for them. Zumwalt stated, “My favorite part would have to be wrapping the gifts. My mom taught me at a young age how to wrap a gift, and I liked the challenge of all of the odd-shaped objects they have available there for the kids.”

During the week of December 6-9, on December 7, after school was the FFA Christmas Party. At the party, there is a dinner provided which consists of pulled pork provided by the meats class, and various desserts, drinks, and sides brought by each grade. Alyssa Snitker (11), who attended the party, stated, “After our meal we have our white elephant game, which gets pretty intense. Then we have King of Ping, which is our very serious pingpong tournament. Then we also have games like washers and cornholes.” Snitker added, “My favorite part is just getting together with everyone, talking to people you don’t see a lot, and it’s just a good time to get together.”

This year on December 16, was the traditional Candy Grams distribution. The Candy Grams Program is an event held each year by the PTO Committee. This program is a, “fun way for students to send a candy cane and a sweet message to a friend or teacher in the school before heading out on Winter Break,” according to 2022 PTO President, Kendra Hill. In order to participate in the program, a child may bring in $1 per candy gram, write a note on a piece of paper, and the note is delivered on December 16 to the intended teacher or friend inside of the school district with a candy cane attached.

Finally, during the last week of school before Winter Break, the Fair Grove SADD Team put on a spirit week that has been held year after year. The theme for the days were Tuesday: PJ Day, Wednesday: Rhyme Without Reason, Thursday: Flannel Day, and Festive Friday to finish up the week!

Winter break of the 2022-23 school year begins at the end of the day on December 20th and lasts until January 3, 2022. Throughout this break, there is a boys’ basketball tournament, called Blue & Gold from December 26th, through the rest of the week depending on if the boys advance or not. The Fair Grove Girls’ Basketball Team also has a tournament called, Mountain Home Holiday Tournament beginning on December 27th.