Holiday Lightshow

If you are interested in volunteering during a lightshow click on the button below to sign up or call the Canton Chamber at 309-647-2677 Ext. 2 or email Executive Director, Carla Bobell at cbobell@cantonillinois.org for more details.

Basic information: We need 6 to 8 volunteers each night. Shifts: 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm. We encourage businesses and organizations to get a group together. Volunteers must be 18 years and older. No children are allowed to volunteer for safety reasons.

Duties include: Collecting $5 donations per car inside Big Creek Park inside our new ticket booth sponsored by MidAmerica National Bank. Need 2 volunteers to collect donations. The rest of the volunteers will help with directing traffic in the Gary Baker Rec Center parking lot. When you sign up we will contact the Lead Volunteer to send training information .

If your group is from a nonprofit organization, you will be allowed to hand out one pamphlet or brochure about your business or organization at the ticket booth during the night your team volunteers. All handouts must be approved by the Canton Chamber. There will be a sign on display that will notify those coming to the lightshow on who is volunteering each night.

If you are a business, this is a great opportunity to offer community involvement to your employees and get your business recognized for the night. If you do not have enough employees, we can team you up with another business.

Other Holiday events that are happening in our area are:

Snowman’s Reindeer Farm – Experience the Magic of Santa’s Reindeeer! Yes, real life reindeer! Must have a appointment to visit. Did we mention Santa is there for pictures, Reindeer Railway train ride, an adorable Jolly Old Elf gift shop and so much more! Go to Snowman’s Reindeer Farm website for more details.

Old Fashioned Christmas Walk and Santa Parade – Canton Main Street will be hosting the annual Old-Fashioned Christmas Walk on Friday, December 6th, from 5:30p.m.-7:30p.m. in Jones Park and the downtown Canton area. Includes carriage rides, trolley ride, smore’s station, Elf on the Shelf, and of course, shopping!

Canton Main Street is excited to be working with the Canton Junior Women’s Club to host the Santa Parade on Friday, December 6th, starting at 5:00 p.m. Returning this year will be the Santa’s House, located in the South Park lot of Jones Park! Santa will be located in his house shortly after the parade for children to visit with him. Also go to Canton Junior Women’s Club Facebook page for Santa’s visiting hours.

Christmas Display of Lights on Enterprise Lane – hosted by BH Materials. Located at 47 Enterprise Lane. Open nightly.

Local Shopping – be sure to plan some time to go shopping at our unique shops and amazing restaurants.

During the pandemic in 2020 it was recommended that families should not gather for the holidays and you could not go anywhere unless you could social distance (and wore a mask). Do you remember? Well, a family in Canton, actually a Father & Son decided to create a lightshow that could be displayed outside in their yard (and side of house) that people could drive up to, watch and enjoy. Everyone stayed in their cars by tuning into a radio frequency to hear the music timed to the lightshow. It was amazing! Known then as the Lindsey Light Show gained great popularity that year, so much so that it created traffic issues in their small neighborhood. So the Canton Chamber approached this son and Dad team to bring the famous Lindsey Light Show to a public location that would be able to handle a larger crowd. This is how the Holiday Lightshow in Canton was created.