Saturday, Oct. 31: by noon, the stage at 7345 Cumming Highway is set for a costume contest with six categories, one of them Best Pet Duo. Hayrides loop the grounds all morning, and the pumpkin patch near the entrance is run by Hickory Flat UMC. One week earlier, the same park hosted the second annual Cherokee County Art & Jazz Festival, which was free to attend. Three weeks after Halloween, the park becomes a drive-through light show that runs every night until New Year's Eve.
Downtown Canton has The Mill and Main Street, which we covered earlier this fall. On the East Cherokee side, the end of the year runs through a single county park. This year it also has a new playground that gives families a reason to come on days with nothing on the calendar.
A hurricane put Pumpkin Fest on Halloween
The Great Pumpkin Fest was supposed to happen on Oct. 10. On Oct. 8, Cherokee County announced the reschedule because of the weather expected from Hurricane Isaias. The new date is Saturday, Oct. 31. So the county's main fall festival now falls on Halloween itself, and the Halloween costume contest is no longer three weeks early.
The Play Cherokee event listing gives the details. The festival runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is free. You'll find food, vendors, a live DJ and family activities, and the event goes ahead rain or shine. Hayrides are free and run the whole time. Bouncy houses are run by a vendor and cost extra. A dance team performs at 11 a.m., and the costume contest starts at noon. The categories are:
- Funniest
- Scariest
- Most Boo-tiful
- Best Group
- Best Superhero
- Best Pet Duo
Parking matters more than the program. The county runs free shuttles from two lots on East Cherokee Drive: Macedonia Elementary School at 10370 East Cherokee Drive in Canton, and Macedonia Baptist Church at 11230 East Cherokee Drive in Ball Ground. Pickups start at 10 a.m., and the last drop-off is at 2 p.m. If you need to leave early, park at one of these lots. If you plan to stay until the end, the shuttle window closes when the festival does.
An older county event page still shows the original Oct. 10 date with a 3 p.m. finish. The reschedule notice and the Play Cherokee listing are the current sources, and both say 2 p.m.
The playground that works between festivals
Festivals bring people out a few Saturdays a year. What changed at Veterans Park this fall is the ordinary weekday visit.
On Sept. 12, Cherokee Recreation and Parks cut the ribbon on a new inclusive playground. The ceremony was held just before the quiet hour at the park's Touch A Truck event. According to the county's announcement, the new play area connects to the existing playground. Its play elements sit at ground level on a smooth, continuous rubber surface. The named features are:
| Feature | What it is |
|---|---|
| Merry-go-round | Flush-mounted, wheelchair accessible, suggested by a local family |
| Musical instruments | Play elements reachable at ground level |
| Quiet Grove | A calmer corner with translucent bamboo panels and a wood-look bench |
| Together Glider | A shared glider with a ramp and smooth surface |
The funding has a neat logic. The construction contract with PlayPower LT Farmington came to $299,996. A $187,000 Georgia EPD Tire Products Grant covered most of it, and $113,000 in SPLOST funds covered the rest. The grant comes from a program built around recycled tires, and the surface under the playground is made from recycled tire material. A little over 62 cents of every construction dollar came from that state program, not from local sales tax.
For families planning the next two months, the playground fits around the scheduled events. It is open on Pumpkin Fest morning. It also gives kids something to do in daylight before the Dec. 5 night hike described below.
Forty-one nights of lights on Cumming Highway
From Nov. 21 through Dec. 31, the park hosts Holiday Lights of Canton, presented by Northside Hospital and run by 112Events LLC. The operator's posted schedule and rates are:
| Posted detail | |
|---|---|
| Season | Nov. 21 to Dec. 31 |
| Sunday to Thursday | 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Friday and Saturday | 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. |
| Single entry | $20 per car, with unlimited loops once inside |
| Season pass | $50, good every night of the season |
The math is simple. The season pass costs the same as two and a half single entries, so it pays for itself on the third visit. That means a household on the east side of the county needs only three drive-throughs in the 41-night run to come out ahead. Weeknight closing time is an hour earlier than on weekends, which matters for anyone planning a visit after work or after dinner. The operator's ticket page has the final word on pricing and dates, so confirm there before you buy.
The lights run alongside downtown's own holiday season. Rink on the River, the covered outdoor ice rink at The Mill on Etowah, opens Nov. 22 and runs through Jan. 1. So for six weeks, Canton has two very different evening outings at opposite ends of the city: skating by the river downtown, and staying in the car on Cumming Highway.
December 5 is the crowded Saturday
If you only plan one December weekend, Dec. 5 has the most going on. The main event at Veterans Park is the Christmas Hiking Scavenger Hunt, a night hunt on the Silver Star Trail.
Play Cherokee's scavenger hunt page lists the hunt for Saturday, Dec. 5, at 6 p.m. It costs $10 per participant and is open to all ages, but minors must come with an adult. Meet at the flag monument, where you'll get a map and flashlights, and bring your own flashlight too. Registration closes Dec. 4, and kids who finish the hunt get goody bags.
AllTrails maps the Silver Star Nature Trail as a loop of about 2 miles. It runs through woods and finishes on a paved path back to the parking lot. AllTrails lists a little over half of it as natural surface. On a dark December evening, that paved last stretch is a good place to end.
The rest of Dec. 5 across Canton and nearby:
- Run for the Children 5K, 10K and Fun Run at Etowah River Park, hosted by The Service League of Cherokee County
- March of the Toys Parade, a free holiday parade benefiting Toys for Tots
- Holiday Makers Market at The Mill on Etowah, which runs Dec. 5 through Dec. 19
- Christmas in Ball Ground, a two-day holiday market on Dec. 5 and 6
The scavenger hunt starts at 6 p.m., the same time the light show opens. You can do the trail and then drive the lights in one evening without leaving 7345 Cumming Highway.
The department behind the calendar is growing
Apart from the lights, every Veterans Park event in this post is run by Cherokee Recreation and Parks. In October the county announced that the department had earned national re-accreditation from the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies, meeting all 154 of the program's standards for a perfect score.
The department's footprint grows next year. As the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger reported, the county will take over operation of nine Army Corps of Engineers recreation areas on Lake Allatoona. The county's Oct. 22 announcement puts the start date at Jan. 1, 2027, with Cherokee Recreation and Parks taking over in phases. The sites include Sweetwater, Knox Bridge, Victoria, Galts Ferry, Kellogg Creek and Payne, with campgrounds, day-use areas and boat ramps among them. The county says it will collect the existing user fees and plans to put that money back into those sites. No fee change has been announced. The staff that rescheduled a festival around a hurricane and opened a $299,996 playground this fall will start taking over the Allatoona sites in January.
In the nearer term, the dates to keep are Oct. 31 for Pumpkin Fest, Nov. 21 for the first night of lights, and Dec. 5 at the flag monument at 6 p.m.
The Trivon Group tracks changes like these across Cherokee County all year, from the new playground on Cumming Highway to the county's takeover of the Allatoona sites. If you're curious how life around Cumming Highway shows up in the Canton market, Let's Connect.
