This is the season for ghosts, pumpkins and bats. Go ahead and enjoy Halloween. After all, who doesn’t like a spooky story on a cool, crisp fall evening?

Halloween starts the run of holidays that fill the last months of a year. In a few short weeks, people will be filling up on turkey and sacking out on the couch in front of televised football games. And then comes Christmas.

There is a Christmas tradition in Webster County that generates a lot of happiness while also raising money for some tremendous causes. It’s called Lights at Kennedy.

In advance of Lights at Kennedy, various businesses and organizations create elaborate arrangements of Christmas lights throughout the campground at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park. Then on designated nights, people drive through the campground to admire those light displays.

Donations are collected from the visitors, and all the money is used to support the charitable efforts of the Fort Dodge Noon Sertoma Club and Fort Dodge Young Professionals. Backpack Buddies, which provides food to ensure that schoolchildren from lower income families have something to eat over the weekends, may well be the best known of those efforts.

Even though jack-o-lanterns are grinning from many porches and windows, the details of this year’s Lights at Kennedy have been announced.

The event will be held Dec. 3-4, Dec. 9-11, Dec. 16-18 and Dec. 23. The hours will be 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. each night.

Lights at Kennedy is inspiring to see. Touring it has become a holiday tradition for many families.

Andy Reed is the chairman of the Lights at Kennedy organizing committee. We commend him and his team for leading this event.

We encourage businesses and groups to get into the holiday spirit by planning and creating a light display.

Be sure to make time during this year’s Christmas season to see Lights at Kennedy.