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This weekend is a huge one locally. The Chisago Lakes area is celebrating the Christmas holiday together. I am referring to the Chisago Lakes Small Town Christmas event which begins Friday.

Most of our great local businesses have joined forces to help you this Christmas season. You and your family are invited to walk the streets of Chisago City, Lindstrom and Center City this weekend. Stop in any of the stores and chances are they will have some great specials on Christmas gifts for some or your whole family. Many will be offering free coffee and cookies, so bring the whole family! Look for the two page spread in this edition for a list of participating businesses.

In the spread, you will also notice the cities have lighting festivals. If you have never attended a lighting festival, you are missing out. The festivals scream small town America. They are so much fun with kids running around, people conversing around bonfires with friends and family, and of course a visit from the man in the red suit.

The great folks from all the cities and the local EDA's along with the Chisago Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce have worked very hard to make this a special event, please come out and enjoy.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with loved ones. We traveled down to Mankato to see the in-laws early Thanksgiving morning. The weather goofs had the whole state worried about another "Storm of the century", so we set our alarm clocks to allow adequate time to get there. We were all surprised when the 11 inches of snow was nowhere to be found. I was even more surprised that at 9 in the morning we had the roads to ourselves. Here, we barely slept the night prior because we were worrying about the "huge snow maker coming our way" and now we are driving 75 miles an hour on perfectly dry roads. What a job, guess the weather, if you are wrong, people will forget about it in a day, and if you are right you get to gloat on local television.

Michelle Fregeau and the Designers SalonSpa team have been offering high quality salon and spa services to our community for over 10 years now. Michelle has taken pride in trying to help our community whenever possible. For the third Holiday season, Designers is reaching a bit further from home, to the deployed troops in Afghanistan. Designers SalonSpa is asking for the communities' help in filling 35 Christmas stockings with items like: travel-size toiletries, holiday candy, hot chocolate or apple cider packets, socks, hand-held games, word puzzles, Christmas cards, etc. and will be sending them to a platoon of 35 soldiers. Holidays can be very difficult for our soldiers, so Designers is sending a little "home" to them this holiday season. At the salon they will be collecting stocking stuffers right now. Designers would like to thank everyone for their help in supporting our soldiers. For more information on the "Christmas Stockings for our Troops," or other ways you can support the troops visit adoptaplatoon.org.

The Chisago Lakes Wrestling Club has set a date for their rescheduled fundraising banquet. The new date is December 18 and this year it will be held at Lent Town Hall. There are still tickets remaining for the event. The cost of the event is $100, which gets you two dinners, drink tickets and entry into the raffle. The raffle features quite a few drawings that include firearms, jewelry, cash and of course the grand prize of $10,000.

Money raised from the fundraiser will go directly back into the Chisago Lakes wrestling programs for items such as uniforms, equipment, and mats. The event still needs to sell 90 - 100 tickets to break even, so if you enjoyed last year's event, I would urge you to attend this year. Ask anyone who attended last year's event and they will tell you it is a blast. Who knows, you might come home with a pile of cash in your pockets?

If you would still like to go, please call Joe Virga at 651-257-1000 to purchase your tickets.

If you are looking for a Christmas gift for someone and are really stuck on what to get, I have an idea. What if you gave a subscription to the Chisago County Press? How many other Christmas presents come to your doorstep 52 times a year? How many Christmas presents are filled with valuable community information, school information, sports and great advertising from local businesses? If you purchase the Press as a gift, we will give you a gift certificate and a copy of the Press that you can wrap up and put under the tree. A subscription is a great idea for someone who has trouble getting out and about. Give us a call at 651-257-5115, we will be more than happy to help you solve your gift giving woes.

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