Tuesday, February 19, 2008 by jaimejac

I must apologize for my late response to this post, but I did not know this website existed until today when I was doing some research about creating a website for the Upper Queen Anne Merchants Association, the organization who puts on Holiday Magic each year.

I am the event planner for the Holiday Magic festival, I have been for the last two years and will be again this year. This post by Mark about my festival held errant and outdated information. Although the event is long over, I am personally invested in this event and would like to right the wrongs in this post.

First of all, although in past years, the event has run from the 5 Spot to Vincenzo's, this last year the event actually ran down McGraw and Galer streets with businesses participating in those areas and activities to draw people down there. Additionally, Pasta & Co. has never contributed significantly to this event. In the past they have donated their alley for the petting zoo, but they have never donated financially or done anything special in-store the night of the event. Because of that I moved the petting zoo in order to bring people to businesses who were participating. And lastly, Blue Highway Games was a sponsor of the Street Scramble in that they are a member of the Merchant's Association, but I created the Street Scramble and worked with the Merchants Association to put it on. As such, the Upper Queen Anne Merchants Association, comprising all of the member businesses, was the sponsor. I chose Blue Highway Games as a place to drop off forms since as a game store, it seemed like a good fit. I am grateful to them for their constant support of the community, but you could pick up forms at any participating business.

Mark, although I appreciate you covering the event, I would appreciate it even more if you had made an effort to make sure you had your facts straight. I am currently the president of the Upper Queen Anne Merchants Association and am not only working on Holiday Magic 2008, and other events such as the Upper Queen Anne Art Walk, but also issues that are important to the community as a whole such as the Residential Parking Zone issue. If you need accurate and up-to-date information about what the Upper Queen Anne Merchants Association is doing, let me know and I would be happy to give you my email address so you can contact me directly.

Thank you.