"It was just time," Brazil Mayor Brian Wyndham told WTWO in September, as crews pulled the concrete out of the Forest Park Pool. "At some point, you got to stop the hemorrhaging."
On Friday, Nov. 27, the Christmas in the Park parade will head down National Avenue, and fireworks will light up Forest Park for the 2026 season. It's the first season in the event's history without a swimming pool in that corner of the park. Most of the season won't feel any different, though. The concession stand, the Santa House and the decorated shelters were never part of the pool. Most of them came from a volunteer committee that has been building its own pieces of Forest Park since the 1990s.
What came out of the ground this year
The pool's end came in steps. In January, WTWO reported that the pool would not open for summer 2026. The City Council had not set aside operating money, citing maintenance, repair, chemical and tax costs. The Clay County YMCA, which ran the pool, said the city owned and maintained it and the Y could not take over. In February, the station reported the closure was permanent. The mayor said repairs would cost more than $1 million and pointed to a projected loss of over $600,000 in property-tax revenue in 2028 under Senate Bill 1.
By September he was giving a bigger number. Bringing the pool up to current standards would have cost "a million and a half to $2 million," he told WTWO, on top of $40,000 to $50,000 a year for chemicals and maintenance. For comparison, the Brazil Times reported that Knust Excavating demolished and filled the pool site for $42,500. That's about what one year of chemicals and upkeep used to cost.
For now the site is meant to become grass. The mayor said he "wouldn't rule out the discussion of a new pool," but added that the larger conversation about the area "really hasn't taken place yet." The park's free splash pad is still in place.
The cocoa stand was built by volunteers
Look at the Christmas in the Park events page and you'll notice that hot chocolate and cookies are still listed at "the pool concession stand" on Santa nights.
The committee's own history page explains why. In 2006, Christmas in the Park put its own money and volunteer hours into a new concession stand in front of the municipal pool. It's a heated, air-conditioned brick building, and the committee wrote at the time that it should last "the next hundred years or so." In 2009, the committee paid for a new Santa House after deciding the old one wasn't worth repairing. In 2015, money from its fundraisers helped buy a wheelchair swing for the park.
All of that grew out of a 1993 Chamber of Commerce committee led by Jack Pickett, then president of First Bank and Trust of Brazil. His idea was a non-commercial Christmas festival built around Forest Park. Local artist Jane Mercer designed the logo, which shows the hand-painted bridge at the north end of the park. The fireworks show started in 1994, and in 2007 the committee split off from the Chamber as an independent group.
The shelters work the same way. Decorating a Forest Park shelter is free, and the committee asks groups to sign an agreement through its park shelters page. Linda Ray is the committee's president. Meetings are held at the Linda Ray Insurance office, 442 E. National Ave., on the second Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m., and membership costs $10 a year. The history page says the committee meets every two weeks from October through December, and that volunteers are always welcome.
So the city closed a pool it could no longer afford, but most of what draws people to Forest Park in late November was paid for by local fundraisers like strawberry festivals, fish fries and haunted houses.
The 2026 season, start to finish
This year's theme is "Home Alone," following "A Christmas Story" in 2025 and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" in 2024.
| Date | What's happening | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Fri.–Sat., Oct. 30–31 | Haunted scavenger hunt with hayride in Forest Park | 7 to 10 p.m. $10 per person with hayride, $5 for the hayride only. Tickets and snacks at the concession stand |
| Fri., Nov. 27 | Lighted parade, fireworks and park lighting | Parade starts at 7 p.m. on National Avenue |
| Thu., Fri. and Sat. evenings, starting Nov. 27 | Santa in his house at the park | 6 to 8 p.m. On Nov. 27, Santa opens his house after the parade. Dec. 21 is the listed end date |
| Dec. 24 | Santa at the North Pole for his flight | No park visits |
| Dec. 26 | Last night of lights in Forest Park |
The haunted hunt on Oct. 30 and 31 is the first chance to walk the park since the pool site was filled. The Santa schedule is the one to double-check before you load the kids in the car, since the committee lists nights by day of the week, not by date.
Parade night, in order
The parade has opened the season since 1993. The only year it didn't happen was 2020, when the committee canceled it during the pandemic. Here's how Nov. 27 is set to go, based on the committee's events and parade pages:
- 5 p.m. Parade lineup begins on Vandalia Street. Free hot chocolate and cookies are served at the Clay County Courthouse from 5 to 7 p.m., courtesy of the courthouse staff, along with trees decorated with ornaments made by local schoolchildren.
- By 6 p.m. The committee suggests bringing lawn chairs and claiming a spot by then, because thousands of people line the route.
- 7 p.m. The Parade of Lights starts in front of the courthouse on National Avenue and travels from Alabama Street west to Depot Street. Santa comes at the end, and the committee asks every vehicle to be decorated and lit.
- After the parade. The Gift of Christmas fireworks go off in Forest Park, and then the decorated shelters light up. The events calendar lists the fireworks at 8:45 p.m. The parade page says the park lights up around 8:30. Santa opens his house in the park once the parade is over.
Watching costs nothing. The committee hopes for at least 80 entries, and its rules ban throwing candy, so treats are handed to spectators instead. The parade's best year was 2019, with more than 100 entries, and the committee's history describes the 2024 and 2025 parades as the biggest and some of the coldest.
The city's next projects sit on festival ground
Most of this fall's other news from the park is about planning, and much of it touches the paths, bridges and buildings people walk past during the light season.
At its Oct. 13 meeting, the Brazil Park Board hired Luke Waltz of LOWLAND Workshop, a Rockville landscape design firm, to do planning work under a $150,000 Wabash Valley Community Foundation grant. The grant was awarded to bring playground equipment and ground cover in line with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Board President Elaine Clarke told the Brazil Times the planning would go further. "He's going to do a larger scope of planning that includes the bridges, the bandshell (and) the playground area," she said, with the aim of making more of the park accessible through better pathways.
The bridges matter here because the Christmas in the Park logo is a Forest Park bridge. The wheelchair swing the committee funded in 2015 was an early step in the same direction the city is now planning for.
Other items from that meeting, as reported by the Brazil Times:
- A $52,000 bid was approved for exterior work on the restrooms near the former pool, with metal siding and a new exterior door. Bids for the interior come later.
- A new sidewalk is in near the fountain, and some trees and dirt piles have been cleared.
- New lights are planned for the pickleball courts and for Hendrix Street Park.
- The Clay Community Parks Association has started staining playground equipment, with bridge work planned later.
- Clarke said the city is applying for a $50,000 Lilly Endowment park planning grant, which would come before applying for what she called "the million-dollar grant."
- The next Park Board meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m.
No construction dates came with any of this, so the 2026 lights will go up in a park that is mostly being planned, not rebuilt. Older landmarks are unchanged. The City of Brazil notes that the Philip Fernsel cabin, built in 1851, was moved to Forest Park in 1926.
Downtown before the parade
The route runs right past the National Avenue storefronts, so parade night is a good time to stop in downtown. On Friday, Nov. 13, Lynn's Olde Fashioned Soda Fountain Shoppe inside Lynn's Pharmacy, 22 W. National Ave., hosts a signing from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with Brazil author Marjorie Hopkins and card-maker Pam Pickett Grimes. Proceeds from Grimes' cards and tags go to the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Brazil Times reported. BankOnArt Gallery's "See Me, See You" show, with work by Loren Snyk and Ron Goldstein, is up through Dec. 12, so you can catch it before the lights come on.
We'll be somewhere along National Avenue on Nov. 27 with a cup of the courthouse cocoa. If you have questions about Forest Park, the planned work around it, or the streets within walking distance of the lights, Stephanie and Nicole at Dyer Creek Property Group are happy to talk it through, with no pressure, whenever it suits you.
