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•North Pole is preparing for the "Christmas in Ice" festivities, starting Dec. 5 next to Santa Claus House.

One of the new events this year is patterned after the Times Square ball drop to mark the start of the New Year.

It won't be a six-ton Waterford Crystal ball descending before an audience of hundreds of thousands, but a plexiglass Snowflake that is to be gently lowered to the ground.

Dan Bross of KUAC-FM had a good story on this today. Tom Ertle, a local welder, is going to use a flatbed truck to raise the Snowflake and it will be lowered to the ground via a cable and a four-wheeler winch. 

The Christmas in Ice Web site proclaims:

"This is North Pole's very first annual New Year's Eve Event! Bring your family to the ice park and watch the Snowflake Drop! This Snowflake will be slowly dropped as we count down to the New Year. Thank you to Tom and Roxy Ertl and the North Pole Lions Club for coordinating this incredible event!"

On the opening weekend of Christmas In Ice, the towering spruce Christmas Tree is to be lit Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. The people who count such things say it has nearly 10,000 LED lights. "Some say they can see it from space!" the Web site notes.

I'm not sure who is looking at it from space, but people can see it from the Richardson Highway. The tree and the ice sculptures are a great attraction to the North Pole theme.

For more details on the Christmas In Ice events, go to www.christmasinice.org.