Built by community. Made for families.
What started with one simple idea in 2021 has grown into a Christmas tradition supported by Waseca and the surrounding area.
Keeping the Magic of Christmas Free for Every Family.
Christmas Time is built around one simple belief: Christmas memories shouldn't depend on what someone can afford.
Today, families can enjoy Santa, Christmas characters, children's activities, free books, stuffies, toys and giveaways, entertainment, treats, decorated Christmas trees and an entire building transformed for the season — all while keeping admission and the core family experience free.
But Christmas Time didn't begin as a large event. It started with a camera phone, Santa Claus and a simple question.
2021 — A simple idea
As our community was emerging from the COVID years, many places offering visits with Santa required families to purchase photographs or photo packages. Matthew Petsinger, owner and agent of Matthew R. Petsinger Agency LLC, American Family Insurance, and his employee Robert Tackett believed there should be another option.
Nearly everyone already had a camera in their pocket. Why should a family have to pay just to make a Christmas memory with Santa?
Together, Matthew and Robert created Pictures with Santa, where families could meet Santa, take their own pictures and enjoy the experience for free. Robert played a major role in helping get the concept off the ground during the first two years.
Even in that first year, it wasn't only Santa. The event also included the Grinch, at a time when opportunities to meet and take a picture with the Grinch were much harder to find.
The Saturday tradition begins.
The first Pictures with Santa was scheduled for a Friday. Then a blizzard arrived.
Joe, owner of The Mill, let us know that The Mill's Saturday event had also been canceled and offered a solution: why not move Pictures with Santa to Saturday?
We did — and it worked. About 175 people came through the doors. We held the event on Saturday again the following year, and it worked even better.
For the next few years, the event moved between the first and second Saturday of December. Eventually, we established a permanent tradition so families, volunteers and sponsors could know the date years in advance:
Christmas Time at The Mill is held on the first Saturday of December.
From 175 people to more than 1,000.
Approximately 175 people attended in 2021. The following year, attendance roughly tripled. The next year, it roughly tripled again. By 2025, Christmas Time welcomed 1,140 guests, including 475 children.
That growth told us something very clearly: the community wanted this event.
An entire community helped transform the experience.
More families attended. More volunteers became involved. More activities were added. Over the years, Anna, Elsa, Olaf and a six-foot polar bear joined Santa and the Grinch. Crafts, games, face painting, story time, entertainment, books, giveaways and other experiences became part of Christmas Time.
During the first couple of years, the Waseca Art Center generously allowed us to use a collection of Christmas decorations and eventually allowed Christmas Time to keep them.
Later, Christ Community donated nearly three enclosed trailers full of Christmas decorations. That extraordinary gift dramatically expanded what we could create inside The Mill.
Individuals, businesses and organizations throughout Waseca and the surrounding area have continued contributing money, supplies, professional services, time and talent. Every contribution has helped make Christmas Time a little bigger and a little better.
Some of our favorite traditions started with someone asking, “What if?”
From Dollar Toys to Stuffies
In the first couple of years, Christmas Time purchased inexpensive toys — sometimes nearly buying out Dollar General's dollar toys — so every child visiting Santa could leave with something.
After the second year, someone involved with Waseca Area Neighborhood Services suggested another idea. They receive so many donated stuffed animals that some otherwise usable ones could not be kept. Could Christmas Time give them to children instead?
We loved the idea. Today, volunteers sort the donated stuffies, place them in Christmas bags, and Santa can give one to children who visit him.
Every Child Is Included
Not every child wants to approach Santa. Some are shy, anxious or overwhelmed. Christmas Time created another stuffy area so children who don't visit Santa can still receive something special.
A child doesn't have to experience Christmas Time in one particular way to be included in it.
When generous supporters donate new toys or large stuffed animals, those special items can also become prize giveaways throughout the day, with winning children getting to choose the item they want.
Christmas Time keeps growing in new ways.
MTTG — Michael's Toys To Give
MTTG grew from Michael Petsinger's desire to help make Christmas Time even better and give other young people an opportunity to help children themselves. Michael began asking classmates, friends and community members to donate gently used, age-appropriate toys and stuffed animals that could be given away through Christmas Time.
Kids helping kids.
Tree Giving
Planning committee member Jen brought an idea close to her heart from a community where she previously lived. She adapted its full-size tree-giving program for Christmas Time using 4-foot pre-lit trees that work in many different living situations.
Today, Jen leads Tree Giving and helps sponsored trees find new homes with people who need one.
The Mill has been part of the story from the beginning.
From helping save the very first event after a blizzard to providing a home where the celebration could continue growing, The Mill has worked graciously with Christmas Time year after year.
Eventually, Pictures with Santa no longer described what the event had become. The new name — Christmas Time at The Mill — better described the experience and recognized the partnership that helped make its growth possible.
Two years ago, the concert that had followed Saturday's family event moved to Friday night. The Mill hosts the 21-plus Friday evening, and Christmas Time helps sponsor the band so there is no cover charge. It gives adults a chance to experience the transformed Mill before Saturday's main family event.
Becoming Christmas Time.
For the first several years, much of the financial support needed to keep Christmas Time growing came personally from Matthew and through Matthew R. Petsinger Agency LLC. We were happy to be able to do it.
But as the event grew, so did the cost of keeping the experience at the level families had come to expect. It became clear that Christmas Time had grown beyond what one person or one business could sustainably fund.
In 2025, Christmas Time moved out from underneath the agency and became its own nonprofit organization, organized as a 501(c)(4).
That transition gives Christmas Time more freedom to raise funds, build partnerships and create a sustainable future.
The goal wasn't to change the mission. It was to protect it.
People kept showing up.
Christmas Time would not exist today simply because a planning committee wanted it to. Families came through the doors and returned the next year. Volunteers offered their time. Businesses donated money, supplies and services. Organizations brought ideas. People told their friends.
In many ways, simply attending Christmas Time is another form of sponsorship. When people continue showing up, they're telling us: This matters. Keep doing it.
If you've donated, volunteered, decorated a tree, contributed a toy, provided a service, performed, sponsored an activity, told someone about Christmas Time — or simply walked through the doors with your family —
you've helped build Christmas Time.
We hope there are many more Christmas Times still to come.
We've been fortunate to assemble a wonderful team that helps organize Christmas Time each year, and we continue to be humbled by support from Waseca and the surrounding communities.
We don't know exactly what Christmas Time will look like five or ten years from now. We hope it continues to grow. We hope new people bring new ideas. We hope more businesses, organizations and volunteers become part of it.
Most of all, we hope children and families continue walking through our doors and making memories together.
Because even though almost everything around Christmas Time has grown since 2021, the idea that started it has never changed.
Christmas memories shouldn't depend on what someone can afford.
Keeping the Magic of Christmas Free for Every Family.