It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

  

Well, actually not quite yet, but the jingle jangle of the tinsel town season is not so far away. Indeed, how about near the end of July.

 

To be exact, July 25 is the Saturday picked for the second Christmas In July sales promotion among the many exciting merchants of Old Mandeville. This year your Old Mandeville Business Association is helping coordinate the event.  They will publicize it in the area news media and help organize a poinsettia stroll as part of the day-long festivities.

 

July actually is not too early to begin seasonal shopping and it is that concept that led to the first Christmas In July last year. in  Several merchants are offering early chances to stock up on seasonal items and avoid much of the traditional December shopping frenzy. Kerri Blache, co-owner with her husband, Michael, of Vianne's Tea Salon & Cafe on Girod Street, came up with the original idea.

  

This year your OMBA will take a more active role and we will be bringing a new activity to the event: the stroll. Our OMBA-sponsored champagne stroll was such a smash success at the conclusion of the Art Hear & Soul Festival in March, that your OMBA is responding to a deluge of requests from participants for a repeat as soon as possible.

 

Among your OMBA officers and board of directors, we have discussed it and decided that another stroll through the heart of Old Mandeville's unique B-3 mixed use zoning district would be the fitting conclusion to the 2009 Christmas In July retail sales event.

It will likely again take place at 4 pm. and again likely will start at Good Earth Market & Café on Girod Street just off U.S. 190. From there, participants, armed with the goblets they will purchases for a nominal fee, will stroll south, glasses filled with the poinsettia drink, stopping along the way at participating merchants for a refill, ending at the lakefront.

  

And what is a poinsettia stroll as opposed to champagne stroll? Well, Kerri Blache, myself and our OMBA treasurer Kathleen Martinell, have agreed that in keeping with the seasonal theme -- even in July -- the beverage this time will combine champagne with cranberry juice for a chilled poinsettia cocktail perfect for a late summer poinsettia stroll.

Full details on when and where to purchase the stroll champagne glasses will be available in this space in early July. Keep watching.

  

It is not unusual to envision an event in Old Mandeville to get an early start on Christmas shopping; indeed, not strange at all to think of Christmas in July. No less a Christmas authority than Charles Dickens obviously recognized that truism when he said, "I will have Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year."

 

We know our OMBA-member merchants in Old Mandeville have good cheer, big smiles, great bargains, exciting wares and joyful hearts brimming with Christmas joy all year long, but especially during December and now, for the second year, during normal business hours on July 25.

 

Christmas In July is actually the first of two major retail promotions involving our OMBA members each year. The other that debuted last year is called Fall Foliage and this year it will be on Oct. 17 with OMBA's help and in coordination with a Sunny Days for Sadie repeat race in Old Mandeville organized by Ryan Green of Varsity Sports on Claiborne Street. At the end of the shopping spree, or the run at Varsity, there will be plenty of watermelon to enjoy.

 

  

Our city's founder, Bernard Xavier Phillipe de Marigny de Mandeville, showed up on May 16 for the busy day of activities commemorating the 175th anniversary of the auctioning of lots that are now known as Old  Mandeville.

 

It would have been impossible for Marigny to show up, of course, but the city's own Nixon Adams donned the attire of the time and was an entertaining presence for the day- long activities. It began with a ribbon cutting to officially open the city's interpretive museum in the Depot Building at the Mandeville Trailhead Cultural Interpretive Center.

  

Your OMBA was thrilled to be part of the unique events of the day, hosting an official birthday party in front of my store, Das Schulerhaus, 528 Girod St. Many thanks to our OMBA Administrator Julie Egle for ordering from Rouse's in Mandeville a delicious cake that fed 100 people. Thanks to our OMBA Treasurer Kathleen Martinell for providing us with glasses for delicious iced tea prepared by Kerri Blache and for paper plates and napkins, compliments of the new Whitney Bank on Marigny Avenue that she manages. Thanks to Egle and OMBA officers Carol Self and Richard Boyd for serving cake and tea to the large number of visitors who dropped by.

  

It was a pleasant activity for OMBA and we got high marks from Mayor Eddie Price and other city officials who came by for cake and tea strolling down Girod on their way to the North Star Theater for a lecture by historian Sally Reeves. Other activities planned by a citizens committee named by the city included a luncheon at OMBA member Lake House, a tour of old homes in Old Mandeville and a lovely three-hour concert by the Regg Sanders Quintet sponsored by the Friends of the Dew Drop.

  

Winged Ambassadors of Easy Living

  

You likely have noticed a profusion of winged visitors to our lakefront these days and can see them clustering around the attractive three-story condo bird houses out in the lake. Those are houses for purple martins and they have taken to them with zeal; a project of the Lake Home Owners Association, led by Bo and Troi Kite. Your OMBA purchased one of the bird houses.

  

Well, this is south Louisiana and of course very little occurs without a festival being attached. The Lake Home Owners Association will stage just such an event -- a Purple Martin Festival on June13. OMBA will help but details of our involvement are in planning stages.

  

Troi Kite said the event, on the lakefront probably centered around the public gazebo, will feature talks, food, and music. As we all know around here, those are the ingredients for a magical moment so mark it on your calendar and stay tuned for more specific details.

 

  

We have been a bit tardy getting to this but a belated thank you to the City of Mandeville for installing stop signs on Girod Street at the crossing for the Tammany Trace alongside the fire department.

 

In a curious bureaucratic edit, the state Department of Transportation and Development pulled down stop signs there when the city had them put up just after the Trace was opened. Girod Street then was still technically a short state highway extending from North Causeway Boulevard to U.S. 190 and there are complex formulas on such designated roadways for installing stop signs.

  

But Girod and all of Monroe Street is now part of the city's municipal streets program in a deal with the state in which the state renovated the roadway after which the city agreed to absorb it, abolishing the short state designated highway. With that designation gone, the city was able to re-install the signs for the safety of young and old on the Trace crossing Girod Street. OMBA member Richard Boyd posed the prospect of putting the signs back up last fall at a Town Hall meeting for the city council members hosted by OMBA. Thanks to the city. It has been done and that is good for the safety of our welcomed Trace users.