Santa to unveil Wings Across Westmoreland at Overly's Country Christmas

The Westmoreland Cultural Trust’s Wings Across Westmoreland initiative will have a holiday launch.

The outreach program’s first pair of artistic wings will make its public debut at 6:15 p.m. Nov. 22, coinciding with opening ceremonies at Overly’s Country Christmas.

The wings will remain on display through the start of the new year.

Westmoreland Cultural Trust Incubator for the Arts artist Patrick Mahoney is creator of the large, metal sets of wings. Each features key landmarks for communities including Jeannette (to be revealed on Nov. 30), Ligonier, Mt. Pleasant, Youngwood and Vandergrift, with more sets planned.

The wings on display at Overly’s County Christmas are meant to capture the spirit of the holiday, showcasing imagery from the events’s small beginnings in 1956 at the late Harry Overly’s Armbrust home to the Christmas village at Westmoreland Fairgrounds.

Stephanie Tomasic, Overly’s Country Christmas executive director, says she looks forward to seeing the wings.

They will include the site’s features that have come to mean so much to visitors, she says.

“The bonfire, the talking Christmas tree, the horse-drawn wagons and the train ride, the entrance castle where people get engaged, the manger, Santa, of course,” Tomasic says.

A special visitor from the North Pole will be on hand to unveil the wings, Tomasic says.

“For us, wings during the holiday season embody love, support, comfort and protection by those who guide us or have gone before us. To participate in the Wings Across Westmoreland program was a natural and ideal choice, as it represents the past we believe in, as well as carrying forth with new traditions and memories for future generations. We are proud to be a part of other agencies within the heritage- and culturally-rich Westmoreland community who are willing to offer individual wings and the images and stories the wings hold,” she adds.