Staff Report
Gainesville Daily Register
Gainesville —
A week of holiday-themed programming at Morton Museum of Cooke County continues this week with visits between Santa Claus and local children.
Visitors have included members of the Callisburg Independent School District pre-kindergarten class, plus children from Southside Baptist Daycare, with Ben Willingham playing Santa Claus.
Museum employee Misty Landers said these special holiday events — allowing kids to offer Santa their Christmas wishes — have been an annual Morton Museum tradition for more than 15 years.
“It’s a chance for the kids to see Santa,” Landers said Wednesday. “And for most of them, it’s their first time to even be in the museum. It gets them in the doors and gets them excited, and a lot of times, they’ll bring their parents back to the museum. And so it gets them in at a young age.”
Landers added that in the space of one December week, hundreds of small children see Morton Museum for their first time, and they tend to remember the visit.
“There are kids in high school who I know who tell me, ‘I remember when we came to see Santa,’” she said. “We usually have 250 to 300 kids.”
