It’s a tradition that marks the start of the holiday season at Music City Mall and this year, it returns with no restraints from the pandemic.
This year, Santa Claus will make his grand entrance to the Music City Mall next week by landing in the parking lot via helicopter for the annual family holiday tradition.
The event will take place Nov. 19 in the Northwest parking lot at Music City Mall.
The festivities will begin at 9 a.m. before Santa arrives at 10:30.
“We’re super excited for this year’s event,” MCM General Manager Greg Morgan said. “This is the first year since the pandemic where largely the COVID concerns have gone away. Last year, there was still a little bit of worry. This year, we’re just really excited to see everyone back out and partake in something that we’ve been able to maintain annually. It’s just wonderful.”
The festivities will include bounce houses, music, characters, video games, refreshments from the Odessa Chuck Wagon Gang and more.
The pre-landing festivities also include a special performance from the Compass Academy Charter School Choir.
AeroCare is donating flight time for Father Christmas.
The event is free for everyone to attend.
“We’ll have bounce houses, as long as the wind doesn’t blow,” Morgan said. “Right now, it’s looking pretty good for that. We have the Chuck Wagon Gang. They’ll be serving hot chocolate.”
One of the new tenants at the mall is Cinnabon, which Morgan says will have their bonbites over at the event.
“We’ve worked out a deal to bring awareness that they’re here at the mall,” Morgan said. “We’ve got hip hop and dance groups.”
Following Santa’s arrival, guests can watch the LA Roller Girls “Christmas Spectacular.”
This is the second consecutive year that will feature the live roller skate show.
“We have choirs singing and roller girls will be here,” Morgan said. “They’re a big group. They were here last year. They were so well attended last year that we wanted to make sure that we brought them back for this year’s event as well. In addition to that, you have the big man flying in on the helicopter. He will land at 10:30. Then we’ll bring him in to the roller rink. He’ll wave at everyone and kick off the show with the LA roller girls. … The LA Roller Girls will perform a 30-40 minute performance. It’s almost like what you would see Olympic skaters do, except they’re on roller skates. It’s really neat.”
The skate show is scheduled to start at around 11. Santa will be on set at Dillard’s Court to begin holiday photos directly after.
The Roller Girls are back after popular demand from last year’s event.
“I didn’t hear a single negative thing about it,” Morgan said. “Everything was wonderful. Everyone loved the learn to skate thing that we did later in the day. What we decided to do this year is ask them to stay an extra day. We’re going to do the learn to skate event on Sunday at 6:30. We’ll close the rink at 6, do a quick clean up and then open up an event free of charge. There’s no admission. We’ll have a learn to skate workshop. The whole weekend is packed full of great events. We’ll have great events going on to kick off the holiday season.”
It’s one of the unique ways to introduce Santa Claus and Morgan says the mall is proud to continue to do this tradition.
“I love doing it,” Morgan said. “We like to do things big and grand here. It’s not without its logistical challenges. We have to get a pilot and get a helicopter. AeroCare has been so good to provide us with a helicopter. We have to watch the forecast. Low clouds can affect it but we’re looking at the forecast and everything is looking good for us.”
