By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
The Knight Museum and Sandhills Center's 25th annual Christmas Festival continues through Dec. 4.
Bidding on crafts, trees and wreaths will end on Saturday at 4 p.m.
"Last year we had to cancel due to COVID, but this year will be our 25th year," Knight Museum and Sandhills Center Director Becci Thomas said. "We've branched out, so it is now just the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center Christmas Festival. We just don't have trees and wreaths anymore. We have chairs, we have outdoor things, we have stuff you can't even imagine. We have screens, full size trees, wall quilts...wait till you see the Coke-Cola tree."
Thomas said the museum has put aside live music performances for the annual festival because not enough people were attending the different events.
"I hated to have these poor kids practice forever [then play] to a small crowd," Thomas said. "We're going to incorporate some music this winter, maybe just have some evenings of just musical entertainment."
Thomas said St. John's Brass will perform though. They'll play on Saturday at 3 p.m.
"We could do away with music to some extent, but we couldn't do away with St. John's Brass," Thomas said. "They are the bounding conclusion to our day. That is a tradition."
At 4 p.m. the festival bidding ends.
"At 4 p.m. the bell rings and if you have the winning bid you get to take your item home with you," Thomas said.
Thomas encourages the community to come visit the museum to see new displays.
"We would love to have people stop by," Thomas said. "If you haven't been in for awhile, we have some new things. It's a large collection of taxidermy including an 8-foot bear. We were the recipient of a gift out of Lincoln of a large collection of taxidermy including a big horn sheep, a wolverine, a badger, half a rattle snake...that's a long story. Now we have a bobcat, a speckle belly goose, we've got a grouse."
