Holiday Arts Market returns to Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre with ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ screening on Nov. 24
From a press release:
As Small Business Saturday returns to downtown Wilkes-Barre, so will the Holiday Arts Market to the F.M. Kirby Center.
The fourth annual Holiday Arts Market will be held on Saturday, Nov. 24 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.
The afternoon will feature a screening of the 1947 classic holiday film “Miracle on 34th Street,” beginning at 2 p.m. Tickets are $3.
Written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies, the movie stars Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, and Edmund Gwenn. The story takes place between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in New York City and focuses on the impact of a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real Santa.
The film has become a perennial Christmas favorite. It won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn); Best Writing, Original Story (Valentine Davies); and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” The Academy Film Archive preserved “Miracle on 34th Street” in 2009.
Back by popular demand, the Holiday Arts Market at the Kirby Center (71 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre) will once again feature local crafts handmade by local artists, including Inspired Slacker Artworks, Knotty Nikki, Nancy Turner/Turnergraphics, and Positively Negative Photography. Admission to the art market is free.
Other activities include an ornament making station, a coloring table for the little ones, a 1 p.m. holiday storytime and Christmas carol sing-a-long, and a special tree lighting ceremony. The tree lighting will be accompanied by a visit from Santa.
The holiday storytime will feature local community readers Molly Dooley, M. Sheileen Godwin, Sue Henry, Jennifer McClinton-Temple, John Nolan, Kay Padden, Pat Parks, Elaine Rash, Dave Reynolds, and Kristina Toussaint.
For more information, call 570-826-1100.
Many local retailers in the city will participate in the 9th annual Small Business Saturday, organized by the Downtown Wilkes-Barre Business Association, the Diamond City Partnership, and the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce. The nationally celebrated event, which was first observed in the United States on Nov. 27, 2010, encourages holiday shoppers to patronize local small businesses.
On Small Business Saturday, small businesses throughout the Wyoming Valley will offer a special deal or discount at their store location, giving local shoppers incentive to shop small. Maps of all participating businesses with their deals for the day will be published in local media and Facebook leading up to the event. A special holiday pop-up shop in Midtown Village (41 S. Main St., Wilkes-Barre) featuring local retailers will also kick off on Small Business Saturday and run through Sunday, Dec. 23
The pop-up shops, made possible by the PPL Foundation and Insalaco Development Group, will give downtown shoppers a whole new array of retail choices, provided by some of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s best independent retailers, during the holiday season. At the same time, those retailers are getting the chance to “test-drive” a downtown storefront.
The program will fill Midtown Village’s available retail spaces with a curated selection of local independent retailers for the 2018 holiday season. The program is also intended to support the downtown’s existing stores by generating increased pedestrian traffic and making Wilkes-Barre’s center city a destination for an even wider range of unique holiday gifts.
The holiday pop-up shops will be open from Friday through Sunday each week with select hours. Complementary seasonal musical programs are being planned for Midtown Village’s central plaza throughout the pop-up shops’ run.
