Light Up Dunwoody Sparkles at New Location

Bustling with holiday music and community spirit, more than a thousand visitors gathered on a November Sunday at the new home of Light Up Dunwoody – the Donaldson-Bannister Farm. The free annual event, which welcomes in the holidays with a tree and menorah lighting, has been held since 1996, but has moved from its prior home in Dunwoody Village just this year. The transition has allowed for some truly impressive growth.

“As you can see, the turnout is gigantic,” said State Rep. Long Tran. “You couldn’t hold this many people at the location last year. And I think there’s a quaintness to being at a farm, and so it’s been absolutely fantastic.”

“Selfishly, it’s much closer to my house,” joked State Rep. Esther Panitch, who expressed her enjoyment of a local event like this, even if not in her personal district. “I think it’s great. This is one of the more fun things that we get to do together as a community, to bring in the holiday season for everybody. And it’s great to be a community with our friends and neighbors and elected officials and get to see the whole community coming together for something good. And especially with the music, and the dancers – it’s lots of fun.”

Bright lights and blow-up decorations adorned the farm, which featured traditional holiday activities and local vendors. There were also several performances, including the North Georgia School of Ballet and the Dunwoody High School Marching Band – which tributed the late Coach Nash with a performance of “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers.

Towards the end of evening, sponsors of the event thanked the gathered crowd, and the volunteers, officials, and other sponsors who made it possible.

“The Light Up Dunwoody event is a true community event, and this year it is being brought to you by two nonprofit civic organizations – one being my organization, Dunwoody Homeowner’s Association (DHA), and the Dunwoody Preservation Trust (DPT). Everything we do at DHA is for the community,” said DHA President Tim Brown. “I cannot get off of this stage without giving a heartfelt thanks, and almost ferklempt thanks, if you will, to two people – those being Jimmy Economos and Leah Economos. We’re almost in our 20th year of doing this event, and this event would not be what it is for you without the blood, sweat, and tears of those two people, so thank you.”

“Thank you, DHA, thank you, DPT, for letting us use the Donaldson-Bannister Farmhouse,” said Jimmy Economos. “This event is beautiful and ladies and gentlemen, this is our forever home, so get comfortable: we’re going to start doing more shows here.”

“Sometimes, change is hard,” said Dunwoody Mayor Lynne Deutsch, right before the final performances. “And moving this from Dunwoody Village to the Donaldson-Bannister house was a leap of faith, but you have shown us how willing you are to take a chance on something new, and this is fantastic!”

Just before the lighting ceremony was a series of rapid-fire, holiday-themed performances from the dance troupes of Dan & Company, from their youngest group up to their most experienced. After they finished, in the short break before the tree-lighting, several young children across the farm slowly filtered onto the stage and started dancing. As their spontaneous disco came to an end, everyone gathered around the tree and the menorah that was dedicated last year to the memory of Sgt. Rose Lubin, and began shouting out the countdown. As the crowd reached zero, both the tree and menorah burst into light.

Amidst the crowd, Tran spoke on what the event meant for the community.

“Just look at Dunwoody’s complete diversity of life here,” said Tran. “You have everyone of different religious backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, different races – to just come together and celebrate and have fun. When the nation is getting split apart, it’s very important that a community like Dunwoody has something like this.”

The tree and menorah will remain on display through the end of the month.