Knoxville starts holiday season

The wintry winds blowing snow across Iowa help set the proper mood for tonight’s Holiday Open House in the Marion County town of Knoxville. Organizers say the big draw will be the 51 living windows throughout the downtown, where holiday scenes will be acted out in merchants’ windows.Pat Boyle is executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. She says all of the dozens of windows and hundreds of people involved will be spreading holiday cheer, but she doesn’t know of any specific scenes yet.Boyle says other old-fashioned holiday touches are being offered to the public in this one-night-only open house — things like chestnuts being roasted over an open fire.The living windows portion of the open house runs from 6 to 8 p-m, while the open house is from 5 to 8.