HASTINGS, Neb.— A Central Nebraska city is gearing up for one of its biggest holiday traditions with the annual “Celebration of Lights’ event returning Thursday to Hastings.

Preparations are nearly complete in Downtown Hastings as crews, businesses and volunteers get ready for the annual holiday celebration. 

The Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce is leading the event for the second year in a row, bringing back crowd favorites like carriage rides, letters to Santa and hands-on activities for kids.

The Chamber stepped in to run the celebration after the former Downtown Center dissolved.

“It’s a lift to get everything put together," said Executive Director of Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce Shannon Landauer. “We felt like it’s a great event for the Chamber to step in and help out with while continuing the tradition. It’s one night that we just celebrate Hastings. We bring families out and we enjoy the community so we thought that it was just really important to continue that tradition in Hastings.”

NCN will broadcast live from the Celebration of Lights beginning at 6 p.m. and will culminate with the lighting of the giant Christmas tree display at 7 p.m.

The one-hour special will be hosted by Dave Griek, Kent Boughton and Colleen Williams, and will include live look-ins to performances on the downtown stage, interviews, live weather forecasts and more.