Keokuk’s Christmas Tradition

For 30 years now, Keokuk’s ‘City of Christmas’ has delighted the eyes of attendees, both from the surrounding area and around the world.

Volunteer Jean Meyer has been involved with the program since nearly day one and she says they truly have seen people from all over come to see the display.

“Believe it or not, we have seen vehicles from every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, although we know those are probably Coast Guard. We have people who come from Chicago every year. Joe Newsome truckers, when he worked at Roquette and we had such nice notes from them because they drove up to see it and were amazed at what they saw,” Meyer said.

Meyer said the original idea for the ‘City of Christmas’ came from a man named Tim Olson who was driving through Rand Park and pictured what the park would look like with a nativity scene set up for Christmas.

The display was born as a way to help replace a similar set up that had gone on in Yarmouth, IA, but had had ended several years before.

Olson and group of volunteers built the first ‘City of Christmas’ in Dec. 1989.

Joe ‘Santa’ Shuman serves as President of the organization and has been working on setting up the displays since 2000 when he first started in order to help out his brother.

He said it can be hard making every year’s City unique.

“It’s really a challenge for me to make something different every year,” Shuman said. “Every year we try do something different, even though we might redo one of the old displays, to update it.”

There are nearly 20 new displays this year and recently in an article written by Jeff Rindskopf from Cheapism Lifestyle, ‘City of Christmas’ was named one of the, “50 Best Christmas Light Displays in America”.

The article chose one display from each state meaning that the “City of Christmas” was chosen as the top display in the state of Iowa.

This is the description given about the display in the article: “The citizens of Keokuk create original displays for their annual “City of Christmas” light show at Rand Park. Until Dec. 26, the drivable route winds through nearly 100 Toyland exhibits depicting a Nativity scene and Santa’s workshop among others, decorated with approximately 1 million lights.”

While it can be difficult to make new displays each and every year, Meyer said they all come from one very special place.

“They come out of Joe’s head, would you believe it? A lot of them come out of his imagination and his head. He sees them in his head,” Meyer said.

Meyer said they stopped counting the number of lights, but they know there are around 1,000,000 lights incorporated into this year’s display.

The display will remain open until Dec. 26 and Meyer said the biggest way people find out about the ‘City of Christmas’ is simply through word of mouth.

Both Meyer and Shuman recommend that anyone who has not seen the ‘City of Christmas’ yet, get out and see Iowa’s top Christmas light display, but Shuman said there is something very important to remember when you come to the ‘City of Christmas’.

“You’ve got to believe what you see,” Shuman said.