The other day, I was reading the news back home and came across an item about a $160,000 earmark for Arizona’s Christmas City, Prescott.

The coronavirus pandemic put a lot of things in limbo last year, including funding for community events. The Christmas city program was no exception, and if you’ve ever been there, Prescott definitely puts on a show. The county courthouse and most of the trees on the plaza are wrapped up in lights. There are two holiday parades, one at night and one during the day, as well as the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest Gingerbread Village” and much more.

Normally, the city council there contributes $35,000 annually for the event, which brings thousands of visitors during the holiday season. But the city’s tourism committee is asking for the $160,000 one time due to the loss of donations and contributions during 2020.

While the large monetary request caught my attention for the story, it also raised another question for me, specifically whether there was an official Christmas city for Wisconsin. I did some checking. There isn’t. I tried looking to see if maybe there was a Christmas village or even a Christmas county. No dice, which raised a new question — why isn’t there a Christmas city in Wisconsin?

Think about it for a second.

Wisconsin has an abundance of Christmas tree farms where folks can go to chop down their own tree or get one that’s already cut (just in case your family has a bad history with axes). We also have a lot more snow than Arizona, so we definitely look more Christmas-y.

Many communities in Shawano and Oconto counties have tree-lighting ceremonies and holiday parades. In Tigerton, there’s a display of Christmas trees in the old village hall. In Oconto Falls, there’s the Avenue of Lights. In Shawano, there is a plethora of Nativity scenes at the First Presbyterian Church. Holiday theater productions are common in Shawano, Abrams and Clintonville.

You might expect one of the larger cities in Wisconsin to be vying for such a title, but there’s not. I saw websites for top 10 Christmas activities in Wisconsin and that sort of thing, but not one community trying to be the headquarters of all things jolly and bright in December.

So why couldn’t one of our communities become “Wisconsin’s Christmas City”? We certainly do our fair share of holiday celebrations in northeast Wisconsin, but in terms of big shindigs that bring people in from all over the state, not so much. Various organizations do their own things, sometimes one or two things, but what would happen if we were to coordinate under one umbrella in Shawano, Oconto Falls, Wittenberg, Gresham, Lena or one of the other communities? Think of the holiday goodwill it could generate.

I’ve often wondered what a gingerbread village might look like in Shawano. The one in Prescott gets entries from schools, families and corporations. Even the television stations down in Phoenix participate by partnering with restaurant chefs to make huge productions. Of course, we can’t expect a local gingerbread village to rival Arizona’s edible delights, but even the Prescott gingerbread village had small and humble beginnings.

Oconto County might have better luck with a courthouse lighting event, as that building is grand, luxurious and historic, whereas the courthouse in Shawano County is not as shapely. Of course, Shawano has been trying to light up Franklin Park with uniquely decorated trees, so that might be a preferable option to trying to put lights and decorations on a cinderblock.

There’s certainly potential in many of our communities to pool available resources and change them from dimly lit beacons in the night to bright and dazzling cities (or villages) that would rival the lighthouses on Lake Michigan. While I’m not suggesting a community plunk down $160,000 to bring something like this into creation, it would be an impressive project to be taken on by chambers of commerce, businesses, nonprofits and other do-gooders.

Prescott, Arizona, only officially became a Christmas city in 1989, about 32 years ago, by a governor’s proclamation, so it would definitely take time to build a reputation, but imagine what a reputation there could be. We could bring in more visitors at a time when things are pretty quiet, which would encourage them to stop at businesses, dine in restaurants, stay in hotels and thus bring in more revenue to community coffers. The possibilities are staggering.

It would take a lot of people and a lot of planning, but having one of our communities become a Christmas city could go a long way to bringing extended holiday cheer to the area. After the depressing, extended pandemic we’ve gone through, it would be good to have something positive that would last a lot longer than the coronavirus.