Hometown Christmas has been a staple of the Rose Hill community for decades. 

The day starts at 9:00 at the Rec Center with a jingle bell race, but soon after many businesses across Rose Hill open their doors and let people in the fun Christmas activities that the Hometown Christmas Committee has put together. 

“At the rec center they start with the jingle bell run, then go to the silent auction and Santa pictures,” said Cindy Bradford, a committee member and operator of The Rose Hill Historical Society. “The high school Recycle Club, Green Club, has something that they do to recycle, the girl scouts are also there to make christmas gingerbread houses. And then they close that down around noon, but we start around 10, at the historical society and we have all of our various things going on and there’s horse and carriage rides, but there’s a horse drawn trolley this year.”

The Hometown Christmas Committee is made up of about 12 different people, some who own business and some who have great ideas. They work very  hard throughout the year to make this day special for all families and friends. 

“For Hometown Christmas we have about 12 people, but we kind of rotate through, we can’t always all be there,” Bradford said. “And so we have a good ten that work real hard.” 

Every year Hometown Christmas does a special little event for the kids, and this year they came up with the idea to do a passport thing. Where the kids can go around town and to different places to mark off their passports and then their name gets entered for a prize. 

“This year they’re going to have a passport, it’s mainly for the kids, they pick up their passport and if they get every block stamped on the passport then their name goes in for a prize,” Bradford said. “And I wasn’t there when they decided on what the prize was but I’m sure it’s going to be fun.” 

The Historical Society has many events going on as well, they also have free food like the s’mores pit that gathers a lot of attention and hungry people. Every year the historical Society does something different that incorporates the things going on in Rose Hill, this year they’re doing something on trains. 

“At the historical society we have our own activities that we do, of course the ever popular s’mores fire pit, where you can make your own s’mores,” Bradford said. “We also usually have high school kids who come in and do the singing, the carloing for us. And we also have one specific event that we work on and this year because the trains have been such a pain, we are going to celebrate trains by having model trains and the history of trains in Rose Hill that’ll be listed in there.” 

The most popular thing that Hometown Christmas does is the Vendors Market where there’s tons of gifts to sell, treats to buy, and memories to make. 

“It would probably be, believe it or not, the Vendors Market is probably the most popular, because everyone is scrambling to get Christmas gifts,” Bradford said. “Yeah, that’s a good place to go.”