Jeremy Ratliff
Reporter
A celebration organized to give those in the holiday spirit yet another reason to visit the Merrill community, returns for it’s 10th year this morning.
The tenth annual O’Tanenbaum Tour kicked off at St. Stephens United Church of Christ at 10 a.m. this morning; featuring over 20 decorated Christmas trees, as well as gift certificate raffles for local businesses, Green Bay Packers memorabilia and hair and beauty products, to name a few examples.
According to tour co-chair Sue Kunkel, the event was intentionally organized on the same weekend as the Merrill Christmas Parade and Bell Tower Luminary.
“Our goal was to create another event to bring people to town and enjoy the holiday spirit along with the parade and luminary,” she explains. “We are very pleased with the success we have enjoyed over the years! Our attendance has grown every year as has the number of decorated trees, with people coming from all over to visit. Last year we set a record with an attendance of 12,000 over the course of the weekend. We were very happy to see such a high attendance and we are looking forward to another great event this year.”
This year’s O’Tannenbaum Tour features a Charlie Brown theme complete with characters from the famous comic and will conclude with a Sunday tour tomorrow morning, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Raffle drawings are scheduled for 3:15 p.m. Sunday.