After the Arts Council announced on Aug. 22 that they’d be retiring “A Dickens Holiday” an annual event that takes place throughout Downtown Fayetteville, many members of the community were sad to witness such a change to a long running tradition. 

However, the Downtown Alliance will now be continuing the 22 year old event in tandem with the Arts Council's revised Holiday event. The traditional “A Dickens Holiday” will take place as usual on the Friday after Thanksgiving, this year on Nov. 25. The Dickens festivities will be centered around downtown’s historic Victorian era train station, The Fayetteville Area History Museum located on Franklin Street at Maxwell Street. 

The Downtown Alliance, a non-profit membership organization of businesses in Downtown Fayetteville, as a founding creating partner of A Dickens Holiday is thrilled to be continuing this beloved holiday tradition and invites everyone to join the festivities.  

Alliance president Isabella Effon, owner of Taste of West Africa, is quoted in a press release saying “the holiday season is a time of celebration, of life and love, of old traditions and creating new ones.”

The two groups published a joint statement expressing their excitement for the holiday season: “This November 25th and throughout December, please join us as we enter the holiday season with “Holidays on Hay… A Season of Light.” If you feel the most festive in your Dickens attire, go ahead and wear it! If you want to share your own unique tradition as part of the event, join us! We’ll be there, waiting for night to fall so we can walk alongside our neighbors, candles in hand, celebrating both the old and the new as we usher in the beginning of the holiday season.”

Make plans to experience the iconic horse drawn carriage rides, drink cider, and support your local small businesses downtown this holiday season.