Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On Saturday, Hills & Dales annual Children’s Christmas Celebration returns. For over 10-years, the event has brought families together for an afternoon of decorating, sweet treats and the Christmas spirit.

The celebration will begin at 10 a.m. and will continue until 1 p.m.

Director of the Estate Carlton Wood said the event will include stations where children can decorate gingerbread cookies, decorate ornaments and meet the man of the season, Santa Claus.

“We will have large eight-inch cookies shaped like Christmas trees, snowflakes and of course, gingerbread men,” Wood said. “We also will have multiple different colored icings available for the kids to decorate their cookie and take it with them.”

Wood said LaGrange High School Service Club members will be on the scene assisting the young builders with their festive decorating.

“Kids love to come and make things and enjoy decorating the cookies with different colored icings,” Wood said. “Sometimes they’re eating them right on the spot.”

In the history of the event, gingerbread houses were given to children to decorate, but due to high demand and edibility, the event switched over to gingerbread cookies, according to Wood.

“We may do those again at some point, maybe on our 20th anniversary, but we’ve changed over to cookies for now, which the kids seem to enjoy,” Wood said. “The gingerbread houses are not as easily edible and are also much more difficult to construct for 200 kids.”

Wood said there will be a gingerbread setup and a tree for families to take pictures, along with an ornament station where kids can make a holiday trinket made from leaves, pine cones and other supplies that can be found in nature.

“I think a lot of people enjoy homemade things that aren’t store-bought that they made themselves. Even though they may or may not be as beautiful, they were made by their child and that’s important,” Wood said.

Wood said the event normally attracts close to 200 people and encourages families to come between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. while supplies are still readily available.