City Christmas Lights "Off" Following Weekend Downtown Business Promotion

Is the City disrespecting veterans by putting out the Christmas lights and turning them on in October is a question asked annually by the local media and each year they receive the same response.

The lights are put up early for a Downtown business promotion, Christmas in Moose Jaw (the former Christmas In October), and during that weekend (this year October 23rd and 24th) they are turned only to encourage people to shop Downtown - except for this year. The lights were on both October 26th and 27th the two nights after the annual business promotion.

Christmas lights were on early Wednesday October 27th am - MJ Independent photo

The unenviable task of asking if the Christmas lights being up did not show disrespect to Canada’s veterans this year fell to Jason G Antonio who asked the question to Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning if the festive decorations should not be lit up until after Remembrance Day on November 11th.

“This is something that comes up every year when the decorations go up they are turned off now and will be turned off right until after Remembrance Day for that reason,” Acting Mayor Luhning said.

“It does not go unnoticed though because as soon as they were going up the other day I thought here we go now we will get the phone calls about that right so we turn them on just for the weekend ‘Christmas In’ what use to be called ‘Christmas in October’ but the Downtown group would like it to be called ‘Christmas in Moose Jaw’ now…and they are off now as of today and they will stay off until after Remembrance Day out of that respect,” she said.

However in an ironic twist while Acting Mayor Luhning was saying the lights were turned off on Monday night they were lit both Monday and Tuesday night.