(Picture credit Hallmark Channel)
OMAHA — Christmas and election season have arrived in September for the city of Papillion, as the suburban town south of Omaha makes one final voting push to be named Hallmark’s Merriest Christmas Town.
As the seasonal channel celebrates 25 years, it has opened a competition between a field of American towns – now winnowed down to 25 finalists – to be recognized as the country’s top town for Christmas spirit. In addition to the honorific, the winning town will have the opportunity to serve as the filming site for a Hallmark-original movie.
Public voting remains open on the Hallmark Channel’s official website.
“The number one thing we hear each holiday season from visitors to Papillion is ‘Wow, I feel like I’m in a Hallmark movie,’” reads Papillion’s entry.
Of particular note is Papillion’s Winter Wonderland Festival, which boasts all manner of holiday merrymaking in its festively lit 1870s downtown. The town’s submission includes an aerial picture of the event — though evidently, the early Nebraska winter was withholding its snow, a feature unlike northern competitors such as Wisconsin’s Neenah, Pennsylvania’s Hanover, and the town of Leavenworth in Washington state.
Papillion’s municipal government is nothing if not committed to winning. The past two weeks have seen an impressive social media campaign to encourage citizens to continue voting in the competition – in addition to a full-length Hallmark trailer, City of Papillion accounts have made various short-form spoofs of the Oscars, Inception, and Where’s Waldo.
Brynn Shimel, a City Public Safety Outreach Coordinator and star of the City’s mock trailer “Winter Wonderland,” told The Plains Sentinel that Papillion is the perfect location for Hallmark:
“Papillion is truly the perfect combination of small-town nostalgia and community warmth in a vibrant growing city. We’re the soul. What more could Hallmark want? Plus, we’ve already done basically all the movie work for them already.”
Win or lose, Papillion is a competition finalist and thus an official Hallmark Christmas town. And while public vote, open through Friday, is “an important part of the contest,” ultimate winner is decided by a judging panel based on spirit, charm, tradition, and goodwill.
“What sets Papillion’s entry apart from the others in this contest is first and foremost, the fact that we (clearly) don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’ve had so much fun with this whole project, long before the Hallmark contest even existed” Shimel said.
If as promised, Papillion lives up to its slogan of “Feels Like Home,” Christmas celebrations in Papillion will arrive very early indeed.
— Lewis Thune is a writing fellow with The Plains Sentinel.