More children than last year attended this year's annual lighting of the community Christmas tree Friday evening in Slatington's Memorial Park.

The event, called "Holiday on Main," is presented as an effort to bring together community members for an evening of socializing and celebrating.The Greater Northern Lehigh Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the free event and donates the tree, lights and more, said it has done so for years in conjunction with the Future Focus to help kick off the holiday season."It's a great event for the community," said GNLCC President Kevin Schmidt. "It gets the community out, and with the borough putting up the gazebo, it's the perfect location ... we sing carols, have cookies, it's great."With the children, and despite yet another year of cold, rainy weather just after 6 p.m., dozens more spectators huddled in and around the white gazebo at the upper corner of the small, grassy park on the corner of Main and Second streets.As the group began to belt out "Here Comes Santa Claus," sirens from a huge, yellow Slatington Volunteer Fire Company truck began to blare as it crossed over Main Street from North Second. As the truck pulled onto Kuntz Street, an alleyway right beside the still-singing carolers, the truck's back doors burst open and out popped Santa Claus.He greeted guests as he made his way up to the as-yet unlit tree under the gazebo and, after chatting a moment with everyone there and leading yet another Christmas carol, he employed the help of two small children to officially light the Christmas tree.The crowds cheered and then everyone rushed inside the basement of nearby St. John's United Church of Christ on South Second Street, where cookies and hot chocolate, provided by volunteers, including GNLCC members Bob and Nancy Treskot and Bechtel's Pharmacy, awaited them in the church's fellowship hall there.Guests also enjoyed carols, such as "Jingle Bells," sung by members of the local community choir throughout the hourlong event, and the children were invited to chat with Santa.Unwrapped gifts were also collected for the Toys for Tots program."The tree lighting is nice, and (with) Santa and the Christmas carols, it's just kind of a family tradition. We come every year," said Keshua Breidinger of New Tripoli.Guests Amelia Buck, 4, and Addison Buck, 5, of Palmerton, added that their favorite part of the evening was seeing Santa Claus.In regard to the event, and its well over three dozen attendees this year, GNLCC member Jack Bechtel said, "I think we're building. It was nice to see. This year we definitely had more kids, and there were more people here (overall).""(Now) if we could get the rain to stay away, we could probably have double or triple the size of the crowd," he said.Schmidt also said, "We'd like to thank the Slatington Fire Company, the Freedom Chorus, St. John's UCC and the borough itself for allowing us to do this."