BUCKHANNON – The James W. Curry Library is making the Christmas at Curry Festival of Lights even bigger than last year.

Director of the James W. Curry Library Judith Williams said this event will take place Friday, Dec. 10 from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 11 from 6 to 9 p.m.

“In the rural areas of the county, you don’t get to see a lot of Christmas lights, so we wanted to start a project that would grow over the years and provide some family friendly entertainment at Christmas,” Williams said. “We wanted to give people a chance to come in and see Christmas lights without having to drive somewhere else and over time, have this grow into large community event.”

On top of the displays offered last year, the library has also arranged a light and music show.

“In addition to decorating the library and the campground, we’ll be doing concessions at the [Brooks Hill] Community Building across the road and they’re going to be providing a light and music show,” Williams said. “You can come and get your hot chocolate, sit on the porch of the community building and enjoy a light show in addition to driving through the campground and enjoying the lights.”

“The original inception of this event was to engage the community and work together as well as provide some entertainment,” Williams said. “We’re hoping people will get excited about it and want to decorate a space themselves. In fact, we’re running it as a contest this year. If you come out, decorate a space and you win the popular vote, you can win $100.”

The event also raises funds for the library’s various programs, so the admission fee is $5 per carload of people.

Williams outlined a few of them.

“We provide a family story time on Tuesday evenings, we have a very robust summer reading program that goes from June to mid-August, we do exercise programs for adults, we do coding programs and each year we do a children’s Christmas Santa workshop, which is a craft-heavy program so the kids can make crafts they can give as gifts,” she said.

James W. Curry Library is also looking for volunteers to help with the event.

“We are looking for people who can help us set up, they don’t have to provide anything,” Williams said. “They can help set up or if they want to do add a little bit to it and customize it, they can start with what we have and decorate a site.”

To volunteer, give Williams a call at 304-924-6724. To keep up with ongoing activities at the library, follow them on Facebook.