EXCITEMENT is building for early festive celebrations in Great Malvern with the much-anticipated Christmas lights switch on.
The Great Malvern Christmas Festival on Saturday, November 25 will feature a host of activies and entertainment for all the family throughout the town centre.
There will be plenty of festive music, food and merriment starting from 10am with Malvern mayor Clive Hooper looking forward to some pre-Yuletide cheer.
Cllr Hooper said: "It's always nice to see people coming out and having an enjoyable day.
"It's not been an easy year for many so it's good to look forward to Christmas and cheer ourselves up.
"The Christmas lights switch on always attracts a good crowd and hopefully we will have another similar turn-out.
"There will be lots of activities going on and stalls. We are just hoping for some good weather."
Malvern Theatres' pantomime stars are to perform the Christmas lights switch on.
Santa will be waiting in his Christmas grotto alongside storytelling at Great Malvern Library.
Great Malvern Priory is putting on seasonal festivities and refreshments while there will be a music stage with BBC Hereford & Worcester on Belle Vue Island.
An artisan arts and food market will be led by Boffy Arts Markets and visitors can get cracking with their Christmas shopping at the varied range of businesses around Great Malvern.
Cllr Hooper added: "The proceeds from the children seeing Father Christmas will go to my charity for the year, St Richard's Hospice, and there will be collection buckets so we hope people can give generously.
"There's a lot of work that goes into the festival.
"The staff at Malvern Town Council, both admin and operational, are all heavily involved and we are very grateful to them for that."
This year the festival is Narnia themed to celebrate the 125th birthday of prolific writer CS Lewis who went to school in Malvern and took inspiration from Malvern's famous gas laps.
There will be a gas lamp trail running from November 24 until 30, a gas lamp window art project across the Malvern Hills district and various activities at the festival on November 25.
They are to include a lantern parade, lion face painting at the Mount Pleasant Hotel, story telling and a guided Malvern Hills literary walk at 11am.