"Decorating Delmarva" Preparations - WMDT 47 News - Delmarva's Choice

DELMARE, Del. -  We've been talking about it for months, but Thursday the big day finally arrived for the much anticipated holiday experience, "Decorating Delmarva Holiday Festival of Lights." Event goers started lining up at the gate with carloads of folks excited to take the holiday drive through tour.

Since "Decorating Delmarva" was first announced this summer, event organizers knew they had a huge endeavor on their hands, even having a few doubts whether the event would be ready by opening day, "Everybody's just worked 18 hour days for the last few days just because of the hurricane and the nor-easter," says event organizer Mark Cathell.

As all of Delmarva knows, Mother Nature was not kind over the past few weeks, which considerably set-back their set-up schedule. The storm even tied up some key backdrop pieces in storage in New York; but they made it down to Delmar just in time to dress and stage them.

The last 4 hours up until the event was a race against time to set-up scenes on the 2 mile holiday tour, get vendors in place in Santa's Village, and furiously put on the finishing touches. The vendors couldn't have been more thrilled, "I''m excited to kind of showcase our product and just be part of this," says Rachel Benjamin of Seaford, DE's Sweet Serenity Chocolates.

It was an emotional journey for an event that has become so dear to those involved, "For 13 months I've been on the road telling people what I'm going to do. Tonight I have to show them, and that's huge... that's huge," says Cathell.

Gates did open, as planned right at 6 Thursday evening. If you're coming out to the event, make sure to stop by the WMDT booth in Santa's village where you can find out how to register to win a 50-inch HDTV.  Remember, if you haven't purchased your tickets yet, you can do that on the "Decorating Delmarva" website. A third of the cost of your ticket goes to a charity of your choice.  Tickets cost just $15 for a carload of people and you can use for any of the next 36 nights of the event.