In-person events at Christmas by the Lake cancelled

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce has announced that more events connected to Christmas by the Lake have been cancelled. Originally, the Chamber had cancelled the lighted parade and fireworks portions of the event but kept most other things on the schedule.

Chamber president and CEO Stacy Doughan told the Clear Lake City Council last night that after talking with the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health, it was in the best interest to try to help stop the spread of COVID and cancel in-person events.  She says when they made the decision to move forward with in-person events that the 14-day rolling positivity rate was in the single digits for the county, but in the last few weeks, the positivity rate and hospitalizations in the county and state have skyrocketed.

Doughan says they are working on plans that will be announced at a later time for alternate virtual events to bring some joy to the Christmas season as well as support local businesses.  She says there will be a virtual Prince and Princess contest. OneVision has staged all their “Festival of Trees” trees in businesses downtown with people being able to participate in an online auction to purchase them.

Doughan says they are also working on plans for kids to safely see Santa.  “We’re also working on a fun way for kids to safely see Santa. The shop class at the high school is building a mailbox so kids will have a place outside of the Santa house to drop their letters and they’ll actually be receiving a reply from Santa himself.”

Christmas by the Lake was scheduled for December 4th through the 6th