Santa returning to downtown Naperville with new holiday event
For years, Naperville residents gathered downtown for the Holiday Parade of Lights, welcoming Santa Claus and his wife and ringing in the Christmas season.
But earlier this year, the Rotary Club of Naperville announced it was canceling the event for financial and logistical reasons, bringing an end to the tradition celebrated on the Friday night after Thanksgiving.
While it won’t be replaced, the Downtown Naperville Alliance has announced it will debut its new Downtown Holiday Glow event on Friday, Nov. 27.
“We just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to welcome Santa,” alliance Executive Director Dawn Portner said.
Instead of riding atop a parade float, Santa will be driving through downtown in a red pickup truck, waving to residents and wishing them all a Merry Christmas, she said. The idea is to capture the spirit of the parade that so many attendees loved.
“We wanted to do something to welcome Santa, and what a better way to do it than bringing him down the streets in the evening to show off the lights and show off him,” Portner said.
A Santa visit won’t be the only draw for the event, which runs from 3 to 6 p.m. There will be roaming performers, including musicians, acrobats and hoop specialists, and face painters. Volunteers will hand out free glow bracelets, necklaces and lighted reindeer noses and a trailer set up to distribute free hot chocolate.
Santa will begin driving through the downtown area at 5 p.m.
“I’m super excited for it,” said Matt Doyle, who will be dressing up as Kris Kringle.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Doyle has run his own holiday event called Santa’s Holly Jolly Sleigh Tour, in which he visits different Naperville neighborhoods dressed as Santa. He has also previously dressed up as Santa for the Parade of Lights.
Driving through downtown in a red pickup truck as Santa will be a new experience for Doyle, who usually uses a sleigh. Alas, that mode of transportation won’t be ready by Nov. 27 because the “elves” at the North Pole will still be working on it, he said.
Doyle was “bummed” when he learned the parade had been canceled, he said, so a new event keeping some of the tradition alive was welcome news — especially since he gets to be a part of it.
“Kids of all ages, people start jumping up for joy when they see Santa,” he said. “They get excited. So, I think there’s going to be a great little atmosphere downtown on Friday.”
The Rotary club’s decision to end the parade was not necessarily a surprise. At the time, Mayor Scott Wehrli acknowledged that he had noticed an attendance decline in recent years.
The parade debuted in 2003 as a joint effort between the Downtown Naperville Alliance and Little Friends, a nonprofit that works with children and adults with autism and developmental disabilities. It was part of what was then known as Hometown Holiday weekend, which included ice sculpting, a puppet show, concerts and trolley rides.
The event went through a number of changes before becoming the Holiday Parade of Lights, a night-time tradition that serveed as the official start of the Naperville holiday season. The Rotary Club became the parade organizer in 2021, giving the proceeds it raised to charities supported by the nonprofit service club.
Naperville city spokesperson Linda LaCloche confirmed the city did not receive any applications from other groups wanting to continue the parade or produce a different holiday event.
Wehrli said that while he had cursory conversations with other organizations, it was best to let the Downtown Naperville Alliance find an event that works for them.
“It’s the busiest shopping weekend of the year, right after Thanksgiving, and traffic is always a concern down there. We don’t want to do anything that’s going to disrupt the traffic that our stores and restaurants are working so hard to attract,” he said.
“I think anytime you have an event that did not necessarily bring out the numbers that it used to, then it’s time to change things up and see if we can increase those visitors.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com