The Season of Light Multicultural Holiday Celebration featuring heavy hors d’oeuvres, music, and sharing of customs from holidays around the world will be held Saturday, Dec. 1 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center.
“We love to host this event because we get to highlight and celebrate the diversity in our community and our world in a way that is festive, fun and brings us together,” said Lin Forney, executive director of the Pigeon Center.
At the drop-in, family-friendly event, guests visit areas of the center dedicated to Advent, Diwali, Fiesta de la Griteria, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas and Winter Solstice. Event hosts offer traditional holiday foods from the different holidays as hors d’oeuvres along with information, stories or games associated with the holidays and customs. The evening also features a dessert bar and concludes with a candlelight singing of “This Little Light of Mine.”
Patricia Bricker of Waynesville said she and her daughter have attended the event and served as hosts who shared a Hanukkah story and taught guests how to play dreidel. Bricker said they particularly enjoyed getting to meet new people.
“Everybody is very welcoming,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity to meet people from our community that we don’t always have the opportunity to get to know.”
Admission to the event is $10 for ages 13 and older, $5 for ages 6 to 12, and free for children 5 and younger with two nonperishable food items to support the center’s emergency food box program.
Advance tickets can be purchased online with an additional processing fee at ticketstripe.com/season-of-light-celebration or by cash or check at the center, which is open Monday through Thursday from 2:30 pm to 6:00 pm, and by appointment. Tickets also will be available at Blue Ridge Books and church offices of Grace Church in the Mountains and First United Methodist Church in Waynesville. Tickets will also be available at the door.
Proceeds support the Pigeon Center, which offers affordable afterschool and summer enrichment programs for students, programs for seniors and veterans, emergency food boxes, historical preservation initiatives, community dinners, and other programs and services.
The event will be held at center located at 450 Pigeon St. in Waynesville in the former Pigeon Street School, which served African-American elementary school students before desegregation.
For more information, visit pcmdc.org, email [email protected] or call 828-452-7232.