With a new Main Street officially opening earlier this year, Mayor Neil Johnson said he plans to expand the city’s annual tree lighting celebration in 2011.

Along with the cookies, carols and colored bulbs that are becoming a Bonney Lake tradition, Johnson said he hopes next year the tree lighting will be the finale of a new Christmas parade like those in the older communities that surround his city.

“Main Street officially has Christmas tree lights and that makes it a perfect time,” Johnson said Saturday, pointing to the new strings of lights that brighten the lampposts and trees on Main Street.

Johnson said part of the plan for creating a new downtown core was based around the idea of creating new traditions in the relatively young city of Bonney Lake, which for much of its 61-year existence has been thought of primarily as a suburban bedroom community.

But in recent years, as the population increased and the city has grown, Bonney Lake residents have been focusing on events in their city instead of in the cities around them.

“We need to have our own community,” Johnson said.

This past summer, the city cut the ribbon on the newly christened Main Street (formerly 184th Avenue East) running through the center of the downtown area, and took control of the Interim Justice Center, a $2.6 million building designed to demonstrate the types of buildings and businesses the city hopes to attract to the area.

Johnson said the new building and a new parade route will only add to Bonney Lake’s growing reputation.

“Eventually, as that builds history, the downtown will build along with it,” he said.

Asked about what he hopes to see in a Christmas parade next December, Johnson said he’d like to see participation from the Bonney Lake High School band as well as from East Pierce Fire and Rescue, the Bonney Lake Police and Public Works departments as well as schools, car collectors, and service organizations from around the city, much like the Bonney Lake Days parade, which was added to the summer event’s schedule four years ago.

In his mind, the parade would not replace the city’s tree lighting, but simply make the event even bigger.

“I think the parade will just add to this,” he said.

But the real question is whether or not the big man himself, Santa Claus, can work it into his schedule next year.

“I hope so,” Johnson said with a big smile. “I’ll place a call.”