Tonight’s the night at Muirhouse Shopping Centre
Dull old Muirhouse Shopping Centre will be transformed into a local winter wonderland tonight when Community Action North (CAN) kicks the Christmas season off in style!
Why are we doing this? During the first phase of the Community Action North project we spoke to dozens of local groups and hundreds of local people – and one of their biggest complaints was about the state of the shopping centre. Everyone agrees it’s not the most welcoming environment, so we decided to do something about it – even if only temporarily. And when Urban Union kindly offered to donate a real Christmas tree we thought: if places like Corstorphine, Morningside and Stockbridge can have public Christmas trees, why not Muirhouse too?
It’s taken a while to organise and has presented a number of challenges – I’m sure Santa’s Christmas present run is easier to plan – but we’re almost there and tonight we hope local people will join us to celebrate our community at a very special time of year.
We’ve been working away to make the Centre look a little bit brighter – children from the local primary schools created some brilliant snowflake stencils and these are now being painted on the walls by a team from Tomorrow’s People, supported by Austeja from North Edinburgh Arts.
Our Christmas tree, a mighty twenty-two foot Norwegian Spruce, was delivered and erected yesterday and will be decorated today. We’ll also be adding some more lights around the Centre to give it that festive feel. There’s still a lot to be done, but we’ll get there!
So what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot – as many local people have been quick to point out! However we’ve looked at all the possibilities, we’ve weighed up all the risks and we’re giving it a go. Christmas is a time of hope, of new beginnings and more than anything it’s about children – and we believe our local children deserve to have their own tree, here in their community.
Among tonight’s highlights:
- Christmas Tree lighting ceremony
- Music from Craigroyston Community High School
- Free festive food and drink at North Edinburgh Arts
- Sweets for the children
- A visit from Santa
- An opportunity to hear about CAN – what CAN can do for you, for groups and for our community
The festive fun kicks off at 5pm. Santa Claus is coming to Pennywell tonight – we hope you will too!
Andy and Dave, Community Action North CAN
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