Troy native created Christmas in Candyland
Also, Andalusia’s mayor is a “Trojan” who has helped transform the look of Troy University.
Note: Saturday afternoon and evening our family visited Andalusia’s Christmas in Candyland. This year I did a deep research dive into this impressive community event - which was created by Troy native Chrissie Schubert Duffy. Sources for quotes and statistics are included at the bottom of this article.
By BILL RICE, JR.
Sometimes one person has a simple but inspired idea that can dramatically improve the quality of life of an entire community.
One such person was Troy native and current Andalusia resident Chrissie Schubert Duffy, the daughter of “Sister” Barnes, founder of “Sister Schubert Rolls” and the late Chris Schubert, a long-time Troy business owner and civic leader.
About a dozen years ago, Chrissie had a simple idea: The Andalusia Chamber and City of Andalusia could buy snow-making machines and place them on the downtown square next to the city’s community Christmas tree.
At the time, Mrs. Duffy had recently been hired as director of the local Chamber of Commerce.
Back then, “Downtown was in a rut,” she said in a 2018 interview. “There wasn’t a lot of life .. giving people a reason to go downtown was one of the first things I tasked myself with.”
At Christmastime, she’d noticed people would stop at the square, take a photo of the tree and move on. “I wanted to find a way to encourage people to come downtown and stay a while,” she said.
She’d also recently learned of a town in Georgia that attracted holiday crowds with man-made snow machines.
She asked herself what if Andalusia became the only city in Alabama that offered holiday snow?
The former CHHS graduate presented her idea to Mayor Earl Johnson (more to come about the vision of this leader with strong ties to Troy) and members of the City Council who … liked it!
To say the artificial snow-maker idea snow-balled would be a massive understatement.
“The snow machines were my initial draw, but then I also worried that wasn’t enough,” Duffy explained. “It was still only a 15-minute blip.”
Chrissie also had an idea to build small play houses or miniature cottages for kids to play in while enjoying the snow as their parents snapped photos around the town’s Christmas tree.
This idea was also well received and local businesses stepped up and sponsored the construction of nine play houses, which were placed on the town square for the first year of a December event that was christened “Christmas in Candyland.”
“Those businesses came forward and turned my little dream into what it is now,” Duffy said. “I had a little idea. But there’s no way I could have done Candyland without the people who shared that vision and jumped on board. When it did come together, I absolutely cried,” she said. “It was better than anything I expected.”
And how.
The popularity of the attractions quickly outgrew the available real estate at Andalusia’s town square.
Expanding the Christmas-themed offerings to another picturesque area of Andalusia a half mile from the Square was Chrissie’s next idea.
The City okayed a proposal to add more 10 x 10-feet cottages on grounds next to City Hall and the Springdale Estate, a historic picturesque home and grounds spanning four acres on the town’s main thoroughfare, East Three Notch Street.
“I call it our little Biltmore,” Mayor Johnson said. “You get that feel.”
Andalusia’s City Hall- a former Elementary School constructed in 1914 - is itself a handsome facility and had been restored with a $3.5 million project in the early 2000s.
“Christmas in Candyland” now had two venues within walking distance or a short drive.
The scenic grounds surrounding City Hall and the Springdale Estate property allowed for construction of 50 other 10 X 10 miniature houses, businesses and churches, plus two attractions which were huge revenue producers - a giant Polar Express tube slide and a synthetic ice skating rink.
A train ride around the grounds was also added.
A stage, and a concourse featuring a dozen or so vendors added to Christmas-themed offerings that no other Alabama city (and few towns in the nation) could match.
In retrospect, the idea couldn’t lose …
As it turned out, just about everyone loves Christmas and hundreds of thousands of families were looking for novel, Christmas-themed day trips.
“You can’t not be smiling when you’re here,” said Duffy in another interview, noting, “The whole downtown is transformed into the set of a Hallmark movie …We create the illusion of a winter wonderland that kids in south Alabama don’t ever get to experience.”
While “retail stimulation and tourism were the goal,” Duffy was pleasantly surprised to see how much “the community embraced the new traditions.”
“Our downtown has seen a renaissance that has breathed new life into our community,” said Duffy in a later update on the Chamber’s website.
It didn’t take much time for Mayor Johnson to see that Andalusia had an opportunity to “step out” and establish itself as a “December destination.”
Andalusia kept adding to and enhancing its Christmas attractions and … more people kept coming to the little town of 9,000 people.
According to a 2018 study by the Andalusia Chamber, more than 60,000 people visited Candyland seven years ago (which equates to more than 17,100 families in a 30-day span).
Those annual attendance figures have no doubt grown since 2018, but if they’ve been constant ever since, this equates to almost a half million cumulative visitors - numbers that don’t include attendance from 2013-2017.
Today, downtown Andalusia offers “all kinds of retail and new projects,” says Duffy, who served as Chamber director for eight years before accepting a position as director of development for Andalusia’s junior college, LBW, in 2021.
Andalusia has also been the beneficiary of millions of dollars of free advertising as major publications continue to highlight “Christmas in CandyLand” as one of America’s top Christmas destinations.
These publications include Readers Digest, Country Living, Southern Living, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MSN.com and numerous Alabama print, TV and news organizations.
(In 2023, County Living magazine named Andalusia one of the “30 Most Magical Town in the United States,” alongside places like New York City, Branson, and Asheville.)
“That’s some high cotton,” said Mayor Earl Johnson. “We couldn’t buy this kind of publicity, and we know for a fact it has helped us recruit people to Andalusia.”
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Once best known for being the home to the World Domino Championships, Andalusia is now known for being one of Alabama’s more scenic and friendly small-town cities.
Chrissie Duffy has also noted that Andalusia seems to be benefitting from a nostalgia for living in smaller, more rural cities, especially those with distinctive and well-maintained historic buildings.
It’s probably worth noting that neighboring towns like Troy could also benefit - and probably already are - from their small-town amenities, including a historic downtown district and town square.
Andalusia’s Mayor is also a “Trojan” …
While Chrissie Schubert Duffy has deep family roots in Troy (her grandfather was the long-time owner of Wood Furniture Company), Andalusia Mayor Earl Johnson also has strong “Trojan” credentials.
A graduate of Troy University and a long-time member of Troy University’s Board of Trustees, Johnson also seems to be a person of great vision.
As I’ve documented in previous Troy Citizen articles, Johnson was a leading figure in championing several key renovation projects on the campus of his alma mater.
Most significantly, he led the efforts to renovate the campus’s Main Quadrangle, a change which added the Trojan Warrior statue and (belatedly) implemented the original landscape architecture plans of the famous Olmsted Brothers.
He also suggested that a new amphitheater could be constructed on the grounds of the Janice Hawkins Cultural Park, a project that transformed a forest of kudzu into one of the campus’s showplaces.
At the moment, the “Lagoon Project” is further beautifying approximately 8 acres of former “eyesore” swamp and wooded land that extends below the amphitheater.
Mayor Johnson first suggested such a project was possible.
Andalusia’s “Christmas in Candyland” and campus beautification projects at Troy University have the same aesthetic goal - to show visitors these towns are scenic and unique places to visit … and/or live and and/or operate a business.
As Chrissie Schubert Duffy revealed, sometimes the simplest ideas - when supported by the right people - produce gifts which many thousands of citizens and families will come to enjoy.
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Christmas in Candyland - By the Numbers
11 - Years Christmas in Candyland has been open in Andalusia.
500,000+ - Estimated visitors to Andalusia since Candyland was started in 2014. (Note: This figure, which would include repeat visitors, might exceed 700,000).
17,100 - Estimated number of families who visited the Candyland attractions in 2018, an annual figure that’s no doubt grown in the past six years.
9 - Number of cottages or play houses at the first year’s event in 2014.
60 - Approximate number of miniature houses now on the grounds of three locations.
Many million - “Page views” of articles about “America’s Top Christmas destinations” that mention Andalusia’s attractions.
3 - Number of movie screens at Andalusia’s downtown movie theater, which, like many businesses, has been restored or renovated in recent years.
8 - Years Chrissie Schubert Duffy served as executive director of the Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce.
3 - Number of attractions that require paid tickets. (The Polar Hill Tubing Slide, ice skating on a synthetic rink and, some years, rides around the town square in a horse-drawn carriage).
60 to 90 - Minutes someone might have to wait to get a table at Big Mike’s Steakhouse in downtown on weekend nights when Candyland is open.
50 - in feet, height of Christmas Tree on the Square in downtown Andalusia.
150 - In feet, length of the Polar slide (Longer and taller than it was in its first years. Note: Rides are $1 per slide.)
$900,000 - Purchase price the City of Andalusia paid to acquire the Springdale Estate and gardens in 2010.
$140,000 - Price the City paid to purchase attractions and equipment it had previously been renting the first few years of “Christmas in CandyLand” - investments that have paid for themselves many times over.
150 - Approximate number of employees and volunteers required to staff “Christmas in Candyland” each year.
3 - Number of nights where “Christmas in Candyland” will be open after Christmas (Dec. 27, 28th and 29th).
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Article sources:
Official website for Christmas in Candyland.
Article about second year of the event.
Why Andalusia is Alabama’s ultimate Christmas town (al.com article from 2019).
WSFA feature on Candyland’s 10th Anniversary.
Andalusia Chamber’s report on Candy-land’s economic impact (from 2019 or 2020).
Country Living Article highlights Andalusia.
The Most Festive Cities in the U.S. article
Southern Living touts Andalusia.
MORE PHOTOS …
More bonus text (hey, when I start researching ... I keep going) ....
Springdale Estate
Springdale, situated in the heart of Andalusia, on East Three Notch Street, is a large home on approximately four acres that was constructed by John G. Scherf in the early 1930s. It was scheduled to be auctioned off until the Andalusia mayor and city council stepped in to purchase it and thereby saved it from commercial development.
Springdale Estate is a Spanish-style home with six bedrooms and features a red-tile roof and tan stucco exterior. The interior boasts handmade moldings and an amber-colored crystal chandelier. Ponds, muscadine vines, and camellia bushes grace the exterior of the house.
The grounds also house a meat cellar, a carriage house, and a guesthouse in which University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant reportedly stayed when the Tomberlins owned the home. The house is heated by a natural geothermal spring on the property.
The city council unanimously voted to purchase Springdale Estate for $900,000, instead of the auction-listed price of $1.6 million. The city also purchased an additional lot for $300,000 to connect the estate to city hall. The city of Andalusia expanded the facilities, including a commercial kitchen, a public bathroom, and a driveway that connected the property to city hall.
On Saturday, our family called a Candyland Audible. We had planned to have dinner at Big Mike's Steakhouse (which makes more money from Candyland traffic than any other downtown Andalusia business).
However, the wait for a table was going to be at least 90 minutes. Also, the downtown movie theater across from the Big Christmas Tree was showing "Sonic 3" - which is a movie Jack, 8, had been looking forward to seeing for two years.
So, we instead ate at a great pizza restaurant on the square and caught the movie, which I even enjoyed. It's amazing to me that Andalusia (population 9,000) has a 3-screen movie theater, which Troy (population 19,000 and a "college town") no longer does.
Troy had had a movie theater for at least 100 years until the Covid lockdowns helped close our 5-screen theater. Now everyone in Pike County has to drive to Enterprise, Montgomery, Dothan or ... Andalusia to see a movie.