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Castor Festival of Trees features lights, skating

Annual Christmas market draws huge crowd
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By Lynn Sabo

Castor has been a buzz of activity this past week. It’s been wonderful to see so many people in and around town, taking advantage of the activities and beautiful weather.

Thursday Dec. 7 was the Castor Farmer’s Market and Santa at Ben & Simon’s Pie Shoppe.

The annual Christmas Market was held at the community hall, where shoppers came out from 1-7 p.m. to buy wonderful hand crafted local items and had a delicious meal of chicken with stuffing, two different salads and fresh buns. There were 40 vendors and around 200 suppers served. Winners of the door prize draws were Marylin Norton, Gladys Wiart, Judy Nichols, and Linda Dubuc. Thank you to the market manager Kelsey Seth and her wonderful market team for another successful market year. The Castor Farmer’s Markets will begin again in March.

This year, Santa was here during the market but was hosted at Ben & Simon’s Pie Shoppe. Over 30 kids came over to talk to Santa, and left with a treat bag full of goodies.

On Sunday Dec. 10 was the 5th Annual Festival of Trees. Along with all the trees in Pals Park being decorated by local businesses and groups, the Castor Elks sponsored free skating and hot dogs at the arena, there was sleigh rides running from the Arena to the Paintearth Lodge courtesy of Calvin Bishal, and the Paintearth Lodge was a buzz of activity with children’s crafts, Santa, the Ladies Auxiliary Cookie Walk, and entertainment by Kelly Gabert’s singing students. Along with the Cookie Walk, the Ladies Auxiliary held a draw for a gorgeous centerpiece that was donated by the Castor Home Hardware. The winner of that draw was Kiali Blumhagen.

The Castor Community Choir will be performing their Sacred Music Christmas Cantata on Sunday Dec. 17 at the Alliance United Church at 2:30 p.m., and at the Castor Evangelical Missionary Church at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to come enjoy this 20-voice choir, under the direction of Steven Penner.

The Brownfield Youth Group, along with members of the Castor Evangelical Missionary Church Youth Group, are going on a mission trip to Florida in March over spring break to help with hurricane clean up. They are currently raffling off a beautiful crochet baby afghan. Tickets are $2 and can be purchased at Ben & Simon’s Pie Shoppe where the afghan is currently on display. The draw will be made on Monday Dec. 18 by Kaitlynn Golby-Larson, who is one of the students going on the mission trip.