NATCHEZ — It may be February, and the weather outside is less than frightful, but tourism officials are thinking Christmas.

Ginger Hyland, owner of The Towers, wants to revamp Christmas in Natchez.

At the Natchez-Adams Chamber of Commerce Tourism Council meeting Monday, Hyland told of how she filled the outside of The Towers with lights this year, and was inspired by its success in attracting visitors.

“I saw a tremendous response to Christmas at The Towers this year,” she said.

She said she believes the same enthusiasm can be transposed to downtown Natchez.

“Let’s get everybody involved in Christmas and let’s light up Natchez,” Hyland said.

The initial phase would be to get business owners on Franklin and Main streets to decorate the outline of their buildings and their storefronts with lights.

She said if everyone pitched in and worked together, Natchez could rival the Christmas decorations of Natchitoches, La.

“People will come, I promise you that,” she said.

She proposed the Christmas tree lighting be moved to Nov. 27, along with the lighting of downtown.

“I think we could make it absolutely marvelous,” Hyland said.

While Hyland is looking to lights, Regina Charboneau is focusing on the Christmas parade.

Charboneau is planning on meeting with local church youth groups in April to get them involved in the parade.

“I think that’s what it’s going to take to spark that,” she said.

Also, she said she’d like a citywide effort for residents — especially on the weekends — to leave their porch lights on beginning at dark until 10 or 11 p.m., so that it looks like Natchez is alive.

Director of Tourism Connie Taunton also wants to beef up the Natchez Christmas season.

She said this year she’d like to take several tourism officials to Marshall, Texas, where they began their Christmas celebration with an ice-skating rink.

She said that became a big pull in drawing in tourists, and grew to the point that the local government built the festival a permanent ice-skating rink, and the response has been immense.

In other business:

4 The tourism council wants to begin promoting the city’s new tourism Web site, www.visitnatchez.org, by creating a catchy, bold bumper sticker to distribute among residents.

“We’ve got this fabulous Web site, and we’ve got to get that out,” Monmouth Executive Director René Adams said.