Every place has its sign of the holidays. In Moultrie, when the utility crews start stringing the wires across the downtown streets, you know: Christmas is coming.

Then, on Thanksgiving night, thousands of lights spark on with the flip of a switch during the city’s Lights! Lights! event. Suddenly, it’s Christmastime.

While Lights! Lights! is Moultrie’s signature holiday event, it is by no means the only one that helps our community celebrate the season. In fact, it isn’t even the only big one. In this issue of Moultrie Scene, we bring you the Festival of Lights Christmas Parade. Scheduled for the second Thursday in December each year, the parade is the other “big boy” of the downtown holiday. With dozens of floats, music and Santa’s sleigh bringing up the rear, the parade circles the courthouse under the Canopy of Lights.

Find out more in this issue’s cover story.

Except for the Christ child himself, no one symbolizes Christmas like Santa Claus. But it wasn’t always that way. Saint Nicholas — the real-life inspiration for our Santa Claus — has his own saint’s day, when children receive surprise gifts in stockings and shoes — and that day is not Dec. 25. Learn some of the stories about Saint Nicholas and how he became the “jolly old elf” we think of him as — in this issue of Moultrie Scene.

But, back to the present day, where photographer Jill Stringfellow presents Moultrie’s children as they interact with Santa Claus. See if there’s anybody you know!

Lazarus Department Store has been part of Moultrie’s Christmas since 1947. Second-generation owner Steve Lazarus tells about his father’s founding of the store and how he has made it his own in the decades since he took it over.

Welcome to Christmas in Moultrie, and we at Moultrie Scene wish you and your family a very happy holiday season!

Sincerely,

Kevin C. Hall

Managing Editor

The Moultrie Observer and Moultrie Scene