’Tis the season for Hampton Band Association’s Holiday Extravaganza

The motto for the Hampton Band Association’s 12th annual Holiday Extravaganza could be:

Bake it ’til you make it.

“Our goal to the kids is to have 10,000 cookies,” high school band director Chad Himmler said. “So that’s what we are trying to do.”

Besides the main attraction of music, a favorite extravaganza offering is the Cookie Walk. Guests can stroll along tables featuring, well, thousands of treats and select what looks yummy, and then pay by the pound.

“The very first year, we had maybe 1,500 or 2,000 cookies,” Himmler recalled. “We had 30 to 40 vendors. And this year, we have over 160.”

Yes, a veritable bazaar awaits guests from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 2 at Hampton High School, with musical performances taking places in the auditorium throughout the day:

• Eighth-grade band, 10:45 to 11:15 a.m.

• Fifth-grade band, noon to 12:30 p.m.

• High School Wind Ensemble, 1:30 to 2:15 p.m.

“Oh, I’m stoked. It’s the biggest fundraising thing we do every year. It gets a bunch of people in the community together, so it’s really nice to see new people and get to see the actual families of the kids I spend all marching season with,” senior clarinetist and head drum major Samantha Nicely said.

“It’s also a very good way to get Christmas gifts. It’s where I do a lot of Christmas shopping every year.”

Fellow 12th-grader Josh Worobij, who plays baritone saxophone, is equally enthusiastic.

“It’s really fun. You’re able to get so many people together,” he said. “I actually really love this part of band season. It’s the beginning of the concert season, and we get to play so many different pieces.”

Himmler said that members of the wind ensemble are learning plenty of new pieces for the extravaganza, songs that are different from the band’s “No Storm Lasts Forever” fall show.

“We are playing a nice medley of music from the original ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ cartoon,” he said. “We also have a really fresh, energetic arrangement of songs for Hanukkah.”

This year’s Festival of Lights, by the way, begins at sundown Dec. 7 and ends the evening of Dec. 15.

As for the wind ensemble’s repertoire, other selections will include a suite of songs from Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 film “Polar Express,” plus quite a few numbers with a common theme: “Jingle Bells,” “Carol of the Bells,” “Silver Bells” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The extravaganza benefits Hampton Township School District’s overall band program, which starts in fourth grade, the year Samantha joined. She has been performing at the annual event since.

“I used to love doing it in elementary school and middle school, because it was really cool to have the tops in our high school band sitting there and watching you,” she said. “It’s always what sets my Christmas season off, doing the extravaganza, because it’s always right in the beginning of December.”

On Dec. 2, youngsters — adults, too — will be treated to visits by special holiday guests. Children can make seasonal crafts, and because of limited space, registration is necessary at www.hamptonbands.org.

Further features are the return of the Band Dad’s Café, for fathers serving food and drinks, and raffles that include a chance to win one of every kind of cookie donated to the walk.

“The band families really support it. To pull this event off, it really requires something from everybody,” Himmler said. “And when you add up all the pieces, it produces a big community event that it also a really important event for our band program.”

From the school district’s perspective, the extravaganza serves as a showcase for students’ talents.

“We are very excited about this upcoming fundraising event which supports our amazing musical arts programming at Hampton,” Superintendent Michael Loughead said. “This event is a longstanding tradition that is emblematic of how our school community values and supports our student musicians. We encourage everyone to a come out and participate in this fun and well-organized event to benefit the musical arts here at Hampton.”

Senior musicians may be participating in their final Holiday Extravaganza, but Samantha, for one, still will be looking forward to it:

“I’ll be coming back next year to visit and see everyone.”