Once again, this year Jewel Theatre partnered with Shop Stettler through the Board of Trade and held a fun day for kids and families to come and have their pictures taken with Santa on Saturday morning, Dec. 3.
As sleepyheads and some excited kids queued up to meet Santa and tell him about their Christmas wishes, the theatre filled up in a few minutes.
The Polar Express was screened for free in keeping with the Alberta Prairie Railway's holiday-themed journey this season, but the theatre asked for Food Bank donations from the viewers at the two shows, one at 10 a.m. and one at 12:30 p.m.
"Santa was available from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for free pictures and a visit with the kids," General Manager Rose Chapman said. "Rainbow Photo sponsored the free photos and Patti Marsh from Your Design Works and her team snapped away."
The theatre also made goody bags for the kids and Santa handed out well in excess of 100 goody bags that morning.
"Since the Geddes reopened the theatre this is only our second year, and the number of visitors were quite similar to last year's, although I would say we were much busier this time," Chapman noted. "A lot of the people seemed excited to see this particular movie as they had also planned to ride the Polar Express Train. Everything ran very smoothly." The Jewel Theatre raised around $200 in cash and two huge boxes worth of food to deliver to the Stettler Food Bank later this week.
Shop Stettler will also be sponsoring a free movie on "The Night Before the Night Before" with two showings of Happy Feet, one at 1 p.m. and the second showing will be at 3:30 p.m.
"We will only be asking the community members to donate to the Food Bank, that's our only request," Chapman said. "Then on the week of Dec. 23-29 our featurde new release will be Office Christmas Party which is a 14A rating and looks hilarious but it is definitely for the older kids."