Your "Christmas of Weyburn Past" photos are needed!

While the halls are being decked, the streets have already been illuminated for weeks. Weyburn at Christmastime is alight with festive decor, thanks to Weyburn Fire Services, who work to ensure the community can enjoy the light-post-top reminders of the beauty and wonder of the holidays.

Downtown Weyburn, this year, however, isn’t as pretty. With the new LED street lights (which are lovely and energy-efficient, don’t get me wrong), we have been left without our town square Christmas tree and no lights on the traffic light poles. I’m not trying to criticize, believe me! I’m just longing for a different time, when our downtown was decked out and illuminated, with every detail in place.

I’ve talked with a few Weyburn residents wishing something will be decided for downtown next Christmas. Some feel we could have all four corners of the intersection at Third Street and Souris Avenue all lighted up with decorations. Others have suggested lights on every tree on Third Street. Who would pay for it? Could it be taken on by downtown businesses? Perhaps some out-of-the-box thinking is required.

What YOU could possibly pull out of a box for your community this Christmas is photographs of Weyburn during Christmas from over the years: street decorations, carolers, sleigh rides, and homes. Feel free to go back as far as you can into your grandparents’ photo albums.

I will be accepting submissions until Monday, December 24th. A full gallery will be posted on Christmas Eve to enjoy through the holidays.

Send your photo submissions to mmcmanus@goldenwestradio.com .  Thanks in advance!

More on the photo that is featured above:

The Charnell Studio photo from 1969 was published in a postcard series called, Peel's Prairie Postcards. The entire archive is available through the University of Alberta, but it is currently unavailable due to their servers being maintained. Historian Michael Dawe of Red Deer had posted it on December 9th.

Dawe says: "The image is from Peel's Prairie Postcards which is part of the Peel's Prairie Provinces website that is maintained by the University of Alberta Library. There are a lot of excellent images on the site."