Library hosts Polar Express event for final Flex Friday of year

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

For their final Flex Friday event of the year, the Strathmore Municipal Library decided to host a Polar Express-themed day of activities, which wrapped up with a showing of the movie.

The event took place Dec. 8, in the program room of the library, which was free to drop in to with no prior registration required. 

Laura Henderson, assistant director of library services, said the team at the library wanted to send off the 2023 year with a bit of a bang.

“We always run a holiday program and we typically try, because it is our last Flex Friday program of the year, we typically try to make it a little bit more than our other Flex Friday programs,” she said. “We always try to put on quality programs, but we typically try to do a little bit extra for this last one. This is the first time we have done a theme like this and it is typically formatted differently every year.”

The library had originally called their event a “holiday extravaganza,” according to Henderson, though eventually settled on the Polar Express theme. 

Though Henderson did not have an estimate as to how many people would be dropping in, she said the library was prepared to see roughly 100 kids show up for the experience.

“We served hot chocolate with marshmallows, we had crafts like painting ornaments and making Christmas cards, we also had a letter to Santa station and we will take the letters and send them to Santa,” she said. “Santa was also there for pictures and we asked for donations of a non-perishable item to get a picture with Santa.”

Donations of non-perishable items were sent to the veterans’ food bank following the event.

The library also made a quieter book nook available by their fireplace to have a space for kids to read or to have a story time during the event.

Henderson added prior to hosting, she had been surprised by how quickly word of the Polar Express Experience had spread locally. 

“I rarely know what it is going to look like, but I had talked to a lot of people about this and somehow this particular event has made its way around and people had heard about it,” she said. “We put a little bit more into these activities, a little bit more time and a little bit more financially. We always have fairly good attendance on Flex Fridays and it has become almost an expectation within the community that something will be going on at some point.”

Crafts and activities were held in the morning, and the library showed the Polar Express movie in the afternoon of the event.