City staff is decorating the Downtown Ocala Square for the holiday season despite this year’s cancellation of the Light Up event.
Crews have been working this week at setting up the lights and decorations that have become a community mainstay over the years.
Light Up Ocala was originally scheduled for Saturday, November 21.
This year, however, Ocala City Council members voted to cancel the Light Up Ocala event as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 351 residents of Marion County. As of today, there have been 11,048 reported cases of COVID-19 throughout the county.
The group that heads up the Ocala Christmas Parade hopes to suffer a different fate when they seek approval from the Ocala City Council later this month. That event is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, December 12.
Earlier this year, Ocala’s Lake County neighbors to the south took steps in different directions. Leesburg, which had to cancel Bike Fest in September after rescheduling it once, has at least two scheduled holiday events for its downtown area: The Leesburg Christmas Stroll begins on Friday, November 27, and the Leesburg Christmas Parade will take place on Saturday, December 5.