Covid twist for Lighting of the Lights

One of the biggest festive events in Ilfracombe’s calendar may not be able to go ahead this year, but organisers have come up with an ingenius way to spread Christmas cheer in its absence. The town’s Lighting of the Lights is by far one of the most popular festive events in North Devon, though clearly not a gathering that could go ahead during the pandemic. 

But, such is the importance of the event, organisers are hosting a Virtual Lighting of the Lights on Friday December 4th from their Facebook page. You will get to see lots of familiar faces, enjoy some clips from recent switch-ons, have a singalong and help celebrate what would have been Combe Christmas’s 5th anniversary. Speaking on their Facebook page, organisers said: “Combe Christmas has always been about our amazing community, and although we can’t all gather together we still want to create that feeling of togetherness by coming out onto our doorsteps at 7pm where we can all clap, cheer, ring bells and turn our Christmas lights on in our houses and gardens! 

You may have seen that our amazing tech team volunteers have already been out and hung the lights ready for December, but just think how incredible the whole town will look this year.”

There are a few ways you can help out on the night:

* Decorate! Let’s light up our houses and show North Devon why Ilfracombe has the biggest switch on event!

* For those of you who can afford to do it, a JustGiving page has been set up as despite not having the event we have had to spend £2,500 already on repairs and additional pieces of lighting. Please only give if you can afford to - https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/covidchristmas

* At 7pm on Friday 4th December please just join in. 

We know how incredible the NHS claps were during lockdown, so we know you can all make a huge amount of noise - now lets do it to celebrate our town and spread some Christmas cheer! Organisers say the event will be back BIGGER, BETTER and