Whenever she’s not teaching at Montgomery City Elementary School, Tina Harms works on her other passion – crocheting. 

For five years, Harms has been the owner of Tina’s Crochet Cafe. She makes crochet items in an Amigurumi style, which is Japanese for crocheted animals.

“I’m an empty nester,” Harms said. “My kids are all gone. So I stay home and stitch.”

Harms got to display her shop on Friday and Saturday during Hometown Christmas, an annual weekend holiday event in Montgomery City. She worked at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Craft Fair at the Knights of Columbus Hall. Harms attended the craft fair for the last four years.

“I enjoy this one,” Harms said. “This is a nice little market.”

The craft fair was one of many attractions of the three-day Hometown Christmas event, which began on Friday and ended on Sunday. Other attractions included a drive-thru lighted display at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, a visit by Santa Claus at a tent on Third Street, a door decorating contest at the Montgomery County Arts Council and a decorated Christmas tree contest at the residence of Shannon Brock and John Phillips on the corner of Third and Sturgeon.

For the third year in a row, Hometown Christmas held Friday night festivities in which all of the businesses in Montgomery City were open late. One of the businesses was Montgomery Hardware, which included visits by Santa Claus and the Shriners clowns and a singing performance by sisters Tara Calton and Spring Lynch.

Other businesses that were open on Friday night were BelleEve Boutique, Montgomery Florist, Fox and Fern Furnishings.and Sugar and Spice Laura’s Delights Bakery, where children got to decorate cookies and eat free hot dogs and brats that were served by Yardbirds..

Numerous people attended the attractions on Saturday despite the frigid temperatures that hit the Montgomery City area.

When Santa arrived on Third Street that morning, the temperature was 19 degrees and there was one heater in the tent. Still, many children saw Santa and took pictures with him. Adleigh and Austyn Wilkerson of Montgomery City were the first children to see Santa when he arrived at 10 a.m.

There were also children at Snappy Graphics at a kids wood project and ornament painting event on Saturday.

There were about 20 trees in the decorated tree contest. Visitors voted for their favorite tree by putting a donation in a container under the tree and signed up to win $100 Wal-Mart gift cards.

Milner Agency won the tree contest with a total of $87.53. The contest raised $449.49, which will go to NRG Packs.

The residence of Brock and Phillips used to be Oliver’s Restaurant. The tree contest was held at the house for the second year in a row.

“Shnanon does a lot to get it ready,” said Julie Worsham, who was the contest’s coordinator.

This year’s craft fair had many businesses, including Harms’ crochet shop. The event is Society of St. Vincent De Paul, a Catholic organization which leads women and men to join together to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to those in need.

Harms, who teaches second grade at MCE, started her business during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She did crocheting when she was a child.

“It’s not enough to quit my teaching job, but it’s nice vacation money and spending money for Christmas,” Harms said.

Harms said Pete the Cat – a fictional cartoon cat – inspired her to start a crocheting business.

“I really liked Pete the Cat as a character in the children’s books,” she said. “So when we did the shutdown, I’m like, ‘I’m going to do something with my time while we’re at home during COVID.’ So I learned to crochet.”

The drive-thru lighted display ran all three days from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. at the fairgrounds and included singing lights. While going through the display, drivers tuned in to 88.1 on their FM dial to listen to holiday music.

Hometown Christmas was sponsored by the Montgomery City Area Chamber of Commerce.