Earlier this evening, Sharon and I went to check out the Christmas on the Square Holiday Light Up! event. Mayor Mandel and Santa were on hand to help light up the largest Christmas tree we’ve ever had in Edmonton – 83 feet tall, with over 8000 energy efficient lights on it! BrightNights was also launched, and there were choirs, free wagon rides, and a tented version of the 104th Street City Market. Great weather today meant that Churchill Square was absolutely packed!
You can see more photos and video here. The neat thing about the fireworks is that they were timed to the music!
Here are some Edmonton-related things I found interesting this week:
- At Techvibes, I wrote about a new competition for local entrepreneurs being run by NAIT. I also profiled local firm Nirix Technology.
- Sharon and some other local food bloggers were featured in the Bistro section of the Edmonton Journal this week! Congrats to all!
- Check it out – Edmonton Oilers fans invaded Conan O’Brien’s show this week!
- Nearly 600 people attended the public hearing at City Hall on Wednesday to share their thoughts on the long-term vision for Edmonton.
- Edmonton ranked 18th in the country according to the second annual national ranking of environmentally friendly transportation.
- Speaking of transportation, Google Maps added support for Edmonton Transit routes and scheduling this week! Very cool.
- Maybe our city isn’t immune from the economic turndown after all – commercial printing company Grafikom shut down this week, putting 67 employees in Edmonton out of work.
- Despite a strong start today against Montreal, the Eskimos lost. Is this the end for Maciocia?
- The Edmonton Public Library launched a mini-site for Fine-Free Day, taking place on November 29th. Return your overdue items that day and you won’t pay a thing!
- We had our first real snowfall of the season on Tuesday. It has since melted.
MasterMaq's Blog 
I can’t believe Grafikom shut down! This is not good for me… but I’m done doing print work, so I’m not too affected by this… but print work was my backup job! They were a pretty big plant… and the Jasper one was shut down a few years back… so this is worrying me…
Not only the Edmonton plant was shut down, but so was the Calgary one!
Wouldn’t it be more energy effiecient to have no Christmas lights, rather than 8,000 energy efficient lights?
I suppose so, Megan, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? Not really sure what you’re going for with that comment.