A member of Airdrie City council hopes Airdronians will spread community cheer from their front porches this Christmas Eve.
Deputy Mayor Tina Petrow has put a call-out to residents to head out to their balconies, porches or front steps on Dec. 24 at 6 p.m. for a city-wide Christmas sing-along.
“I saw a post a month ago from someone else and thought this would be a really good way to connect our community,” she said. “I quickly put together the Christmas Eve Santa Single, and it really took off. People love the idea."
The initiative piggybacks off a similar idea that was popular in the spring. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, people would cheer and salute frontline workers and health-care professionals from their balconies at the same time each evening.
With gathering restrictions in effect now that mirror the situation in the spring, Petrow said this will be a fun way for residents to safely link the community this Christmas.
“Basically, we just want to connect everybody when we can’t physically be together," she said. "This is a good way because you can still see and hear your neighbours even though you can’t be beside them.”
Petrow said participants are encouraged to ring a bell, bang pots and pans and sing the Christmas carol Jingle Bells at the same time.
“I’m just not sure how we’d pull that off, trying to connect everyone with a Christmas carol at the same time,” she said. “I did put a poll out and asked people which carol they thought would be a good one and Jingle Bells was the resounding winner.”
Petrow said she intends to broadcast the sing-along via a Facebook Live video.
“I’m hoping Facebook doesn’t mute us – because they tend to do that when you have a song – but that’s the way it’s going to work,” she said. “At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve go out and make some noise.”
Scott Strasser, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @scottstrasser19
