The holiday shopping season officially began in Newton over the weekend with the Greater Newton Area Chamber of Commerce’s Downtown Christmas Open House.

“We had an outstanding weekend,” said Darrell Sarmento, executive director of the Newton Chamber. “I talked to several of the shops, and their numbers were way up in terms of people shopping and being in downtown Newton.”

In addition to free horse drawn carriage rides offered by Park Centre and Newton Village, the Iowa Speedway Pace Car was downtown for more than two hours over the weekend. Santa also made an appearance.