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With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Orono showed its Christmas spirit on Sunday night in the village district with the annual Orono Winter Festival and Tree Lighting.
As families packed around a lone spruce tree and Christmas carols pierced the oddly warm December air and echoed off of the brick buildings along Main Street, downtown Orono bustled, if only for a brief period of time.
“It’s great to see Orono alive and full of people,” said event volunteer Hannah Hudson, president of the All Maine Women honor society and a fourth-year international affairs and Spanish student. “I live right down the street, so it is always great to see a full crowd out here for the tree lighting and Santa.”
The Winter Festival and Tree Lighting event is held every year by the Orono Village Association and the Orono Parks and Recreation Department. It is aimed to not only celebrate the holiday season but also to draw residents to the village district — or downtown area — of Orono.
From the lighting of the Orono Christmas tree to a line of children anxiously waiting for their turn to tell Santa what’s on their wish list, the village district looked like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting.
Children chased each other while playing tag in Santa hats in the empty parking lot across the street from Woodman’s Bar and Grill, where the tree and a concession stand rested, on the corner of Bennoch Road and Main Street.
The Orono High School chorus joined the event with live caroling, performing near where the tree was lit, as well as traveling around the downtown area to carol with followers.
Karen Francoeur, wife of Jim Rose, owner of Rose Bike Shop, said the event brings a new feeling to Orono residents and businesses and that the work of the students involved helps the event get better every year.
“To inspire the kids to be part of the community that way is really nice and the weather is so nice, which helped a lot,” she said. “Each year the festival is more and more exciting. We’ve been doing the tree lighting for 20-plus years.”
Although the festivities were mainly about fun, the extra pedestrian traffic was a nice perk for local businesses.
A large chunk of festival volunteers were University of Maine Students. UMaine organizations like All Maine Women and the Sophomore Eagles and Owls offered visitors cookies, candy and hot chocolate. They also sold raffle tickets for cash prizes and gift baskets from businesses in the village area.
Norm Poirier, director of Orono Parks and Recreation, said the help is welcomed and greatly appreciated.
“This is the first year we have had volunteers from the university,” he said. “They wanted to get involved, but I don’t think anybody ever asked them. They contacted somebody with the village association and set it up.”
Hudson said it wasn’t hard for her to rally the support of 14 other students to join in and help event organizers set up lights, work the concession stand and sell raffle tickets.
“We got an email from the Orono Village Association saying they were looking for volunteers,” she said. “I reached out to all of the other groups on campus who said they would like to help as well and I let [the Town of Orono] know that we would be happy to help.”
The event awakened downtown Orono during what would have normally been another quiet Sunday, something both locals and visitors appreciated.
“It’s nice that there is a lot going on, but it is not as large a scale as the downtown Bangor area,” said Erica Matthews of Bangor, a mother of three. “It’s nice to have things to do with them and to not feel overwhelmed with keeping up with them. They’ve had fun and we walked around Main Street and looked at lights and went caroling and came here and roasted some marshmallows.
“It was great.”
Bangor Daily News