When it comes to the Christmas holidays in Hot Springs, several things come to mind -- the lights downtown, the annual chili cookoff and the annual Christmas for Kids event held at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
Retired Judge John Homer Wright has spent over 40 years working at the event, starting after Hazel Gossett mentioned the event to him.
"I got involved in it in 1979," Wright said. "Earl Mazander, who was the municipal judge at that time, was doing it in the city board chambers because that's where Municipal Court was at that time. His court clerk, Hazel Gossett, mentioned that they were doing something for the kids from the area and I might enjoy helping them. So I went down and was one of the toy givers."
Wright took over the event when he became municipal judge in 1985, and it moved into the convention center soon after.
"In '85 when I took over as municipal judge, I kind of inherited the operation of the event, and it just started growing," he said. "Then the civic auditorium kind of invited us over, and we were in the lobby of Horner Hall for a year or two, and it kept getting bigger and bigger."
This year's event will be held on Dec. 21 at 11 a.m. in Hall A of the Hot Springs Convention Center, where it has been held for over 20 years.
The event is basically a chance for the Christmas for Kids Foundation to help provide a happy Christmas for area children.
"It's basically a toy giveaway," Wright said. "We open the doors at the convention auditorium at 11 (a.m.) to the kids. We feed them a hot dog, chips, drink, cookie maybe, depending on what we pull in any given year. While they're eating 'Mustang Sally' Simpson will sing Christmas carols, do music. She'll do a few non-carol songs that she likes. We have a magic show. Then we raffle off 50 bikes."
The children will also get a chance to meet Santa Claus before getting some small gifts.
"Everybody goes through our toy line, and they meet Santa. ... Then they go through the line, and we have sacks that we fill up with toys and candy and fruit and nuts," Wright said.
In 2020, the foundation had to make a change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but each year's event is a little different from the others, he said.
"It isn't so mechanical that every year is not its own year," he said. "Of course, in 2020, we bought backpacks and stuffed them and then delivered those to area churches. They passed them out for us, so that was different."
The event has also become a generational event -- from people who received gifts that bring their children or grandchildren to the families of the organizers getting involved from a young age.
"We've had third-generation people," Wright said. "And of course, my memory is not that good, but we have had people that tell us, 'I attended this event as a child,' and now they're there with their grandkids."
John Muldoon was one person who has been involved on the other side of the event most of his life, Wright said.
"He used to bring his baseball team in, and they would man positions in the gift line," he said. "They would load toys in, help us set up the area, set up the stage, put whatever decorations we've been able to come up with, put them out. He's more management now than he was in those days."
While attendance was down last year, Wright said he hopes to see the numbers return to pre-pandemic levels. Last year, the event garnered around 150 children, but in 2019, there were a total of 759 people who were served food.
"We have adults involved in that," he said. "A lot of adults won't eat the hot dogs. They just bring their kids, but ... that year (Turf Catering) were putting boxes together, so we had an exact count on how many they gave out -- 759. So we're looking for 600 kids hopefully, and we're preparing for that."