Date: Fri 28-Nov-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Ram-Pasture-Tree-Lighting

Full Text:

A Few Hardy Souls Ensure The Tree Lighting Tradition Shines Brightly

(with photos)

Main Street will once again be aglow in lights on Friday night, December 5,

for the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. For the 14th straight year,

Newtown residents will gather at the Ram Pasture on Elm Drive to celebrate

what has become the town's official start to the Christmas season.

The lights were strung on the tree last Saturday, a bitterly cold, wet day, by

Joe Migone of Bartlett Tree Service and former Bartlett employee Tim

Sonnenfroth of Tasco Services, both of whom worked in cherry pickers while

Stan Perrone of Kesco Electric stood on the ground nearby checking all the

strings of lights.

"It don't get no worse than today -- cold and raw," Mr Migone commented as he

maneuvered the bucket he was standing in up to the top of the 100-foot tree.

"Without the volunteers and businesses like Bartlett which donate equipment

and employees to help us, we would never be able to have the tree lighting,"

said Chamber of Commerce member Janet Woycik.

In 1984, the Chamber of Commerce and then-president Sam Eisenbach decided to

undertake a project that would benefit the entire community. The idea came

from Newtown resident Wayland Johnson, a TWA pilot who had seen many Christmas

tree displays during his trips to Europe.

The chamber approved the project and had little trouble finding the right

tree: The Ram Pasture provided the perfect setting. The original

tree-lightning committee included Mrs Woycik, Diana Johnson, Barbara

Kasbarian, Brian and Mary Jane Healey, Dan Dalton of the Bartlett Tree Company

and Stan Perrone.

The first year was a fiasco, according to the committee members. Lights were

ordered which never arrived, forcing Tom Paternoster to make an emergency run

to Cambridge, Mass., to get them. In the freezing cold, chamber members rushed

to screw in the bulbs in preparation for the big event. Then they worried that

no one would show up or something unforeseen might happen.

"What if we pulled the switch and the tree didn't light up?" Janet Woycik

said.

To everyone's relief, hundreds of people showed up and the tree lit on the

first try. As the years passed, more people gathered around the 100-foot tree

to join in the fun. Music by the Newtown High School band and chorus helped to

make the event even more festive, and they continue to do so today.

In 1986 the chamber began a luminaria project in conjunction with the tree

lighting. Residents along Main Street, Elm Drive, Glover Avenue and South Main

set out candles in paper bags and light these luminaria for the tree ceremony.

Soon after the first ceremony, the chamber received a letter from a woman

whose son is buried in the Village Cemetery, across the street from the tree.

She thanked the chamber for allowing her family to celebrate the holidays with

their child once again.

Over the years the volunteers gave up Saturdays -- it takes about six hours to

string the lights on the tree -- and even sleep to make sure the tree lighting

would taken place. Joe Migone, for example, has driven nearly all night to

retrieve Bartlett's alpine cherry picker from locations in other New England

states to bring it to Newtown, making do with two hours' sleep before getting

up to do the lights.

Like many of the volunteers, Stan Perrone said it just wouldn't be Christmas

without the tree lighting ceremony.

"I look at the kids' faces and the parents' faces -- everyone is just

glowing," he said. "It's beautiful. The sense of community is wonderful."