Hometown Holidays lights up downtown Camas

Hundreds of visitors filled the streets of historic downtown Camas last week for the annual Hometown Holidays celebration, held Friday, Dec. 6.

The free event, coordinated and hosted by Camas Parks and Recreation Department, coincided with the Downtown Camas Association’s December First Friday festivities, and featured school and community choirs, bands and dancers, crafts for children, street food vendors, after-hours shopping and dining at participating downtown restaurants and shops and the annual lighting of the holiday tree outside the historic Liberty Theatre on Northeast Fourth Avenue.

Camas Public Works employees shared with The Post-Record that the process behind the lighting of the holiday tree takes approximately two weeks — starting with the selection and cutting down of the actual tree at a Washougal tree farm to drilling holes in the tree to add more branches, setting the tree up in its traditional space on Northeast Fourth Avenue, getting the lights onto the tree and then, finally, coordinating with city officials and Parks and Recreation staff to host the annual tree lighting ceremony.