Lighting up the park

At about 5:15 p.m. on Saturday, the Christmas lights went on at Leo Keith Thorsness Memorial Park. Photo / Per Peterson

On a Saturday afternoon in early November, well before anyone was thinking about Thanksgiving, a small group of Walnut Grove volunteers descended upon Leo Keith Thorsness Memorial Park to take on the time-honored tradition of hanging Christmas lights.

This past Saturday, those volunteers, along with hundreds of people from Walnut Grove and the surrounding area, enjoyed the fruits of that holiday labor when the the lights — and the park itself — came alive for the first time, creating a true holiday spectacle, one that would warm the hearts of even the Scroogiests of Scrooges and Grinchiest of Grinches.