DAYTON — A Dayton community holiday tradition is making a comeback.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, the Holly Days celebration is scheduled to take place inside the Dayton Arcade this week.
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The event was popular in the 80s, but disappeared before the Arcade closed and crumbled.
The Arcade has been back for five years, and this year the rebuild efforts finished up.
“It’s a perfect place for holiday gifts,” Dayton Arcade Marketing and Community Partnerships Manager Megan Dunn Peters said.
More than 60 vendors will fill the building, selling their locally produced gift ideas.
“This year they’re going to have a focus on items that are between $5 and $15 as giftables,” Dunn Peters said. “You’re going to spend that much online, shopping online, so you might as well spend it in your own community.”
The event is a holiday attraction, but the star of the show may be the Arcade complex itself.
Vendors will be set up across the rotunda, the north arcade retail wing, and the downstairs tank area.
“One of the things you can get here that you can’t get anywhere else, including Miller Lane and Austin Landing, is like 100 years of history,” Table 33 restaurant owner Charlie Carroll said.
Carroll loves the Arcade so much that he moved his restaurant here and opened two other complementary businesses.
“You know, we try to just be a great compliment to the architecture and history that’s here, which is like the difference maker,” he said.
Carroll said he’s excited to be part of one of Dayton’s oldest “returning” traditions.
“It really represents a bigger life narrative, if you ask me, about things being restored and things coming back to life,” he said.
This year’s event will take place from December 10 to 12, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
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News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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