Christmas trees will not be the only items decorated this holiday season as city officials and the Ironton Business Association encourage citizens to "Adopt a Meter" to bring some holiday cheer to downtown Ironton.

In past years, parking meters were shut down for two weeks to attract shoppers to the downtown. Rather than just covering up the 300 parking meters with bags this year, IBA President Mark Compston came up with the idea to have businesses and citizens decorate the meters.

"We thought if we could get the whole town involved it would brighten up the downtown," he said. "This gives us pride in our community and a way to distinguish ourselves from other communities."

The decorating will officially begin

Wednesday and the free parking has been extended so that it will begin Friday and end the first of January.

Last year, the Mayor's office and Compston decorated a few meters just for fun. Compston used colored cellophane wrap to transform the meters around his Edward Jones office into giant green, yellow, purple and red lollipops. It was very easy and inexpensive, costing only about $1 per meter, he said.

Compston said that participants can decorate the meters any way that they want as long as it is in good taste.

Mayor Bob Cleary said he thought it was a great idea to attempt to get more people involved. He went on record and issued a challenge to the rest of the city that he and his office is ready to win the grand prize.

"We just want to get the excitement going for the holidays and we look forward to the competition," he said.

Prizes will be awarded for categories including the most creative, the most attractive and more.

The program is not restricted to Ironton residents and Compston wants to encourage everyone from the Tri-State to participate.

"It is open to anyone who cares about the city of Ironton and wants to decorate," he said.

Several of the downtown businesses have already agreed to participate and Compston hopes more join within the next week.

Joe Unger, owner of Unger's Shoe Store, said he and his employees are excited about decorating the meters for the first time and will try to be as creative as possible.

"I think this is a really neat idea and if we do this right it could become an attraction unto itself for the city," he said.

For more information on adopting a meter, call the IBA office at 532-7363.