Faces on the Christmas Green

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by Allan Appel | Dec 5, 2008 8:21 am

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Posted to: Arts

Nine-year-old Ayah Eldridge’s face beamed with pleasure and wonder as New Haven’s nearly 80-foot Christmas tree did its illuminating stuff at precisely 6:12 Thursday night.

She was joined by several hundred other people, many with little faces. Some (the adults) were regular sized. Some were especially large, particularly the non-human faces such as Frosty here, aka Sarah Stevenson of the parks department.

As a volunteer snowman — there were also roving bears, reindeer, and elves — she endured a lot a heat behind that carrot nose to light up Andrew Harris’s night.

An hour before the tree was lit, Santa arrived in what has become New Haven fashion, in the bucket of Truck No. One from the Grand Avenue firehouse. Escorted from truck to Santa’s house like a rock star, Santa, aka Rich Acampora, a jovial West Haven mail carrier and all-around giving guy, heard Nevaeh Random’s wish for a set of Barbies for Christmas. After her mom gave the discrete nod to Santa, the jelly-bellied one whispered that he thought the wish just might come through.

Showing that caring runs in the family, chief elf Stephanie Acampora, Santa’s daughter, helped organize a line of hopeful kids and their parents that snaked out into the middle of the Green.

The other long line of the festive evening was waiting to catch a ride on Snowcap, the robotic Siberian Tiger that Alpine Bob (Bob Meyers) brings to the Green every year, now five Christmas-tree lightings in a row.

Alpine Bob builds the creatures with a one-way clutch so they can only go forward and around the flagpole. The huggable creatures also include Lucy the Polar Bear, Mr. Reindeer, and Mr. Moose, here being ridden by Edgewood School fifth grader Alexa Mallard. “You know,” Bob explained to Alexa, “a moose is very friendly, and something less appreciated: they are terrific swimmers.”

Bob, who deploys his creatures around the region from events like this to corporate parties to birthday celebrations for 70-year olds, said his creatures can bear the weight of up to two adults. No kidding.

On the main stage across from the thronged Alpine line, these faces were also huffing and puffing to entertain the audience waiting for the tree lighting. Clarinetists Jacob Mondry and Tinessa Hoffler were part of the 30-strong Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School Band. Their “Jingle Bells” was a hit. When an unexpected gust of wind blew music off their stands, on they played “Good King Wenceslas,” unperturbed.

The kind faces of representatives of the Lions Club, such as Maureen Mazzacane, were also everywhere about offering hot cider. “The Lions,” she said, “have been doing this for three years. We do a lot in town, focusing on sight, on treatment for macular degeneration. But tonight, it’s cider.”

Meanwhile on the Upper Green, Steve Fortes (on the right) and Harold Hasell were lighting the luminaria: some 1,300 candles reposing in perforated bags, which is the project of the Town Green Special Services District. Luminaria are deployed not only at the city’s Christmas Tree event, but throughout the year to lead people downtown.

Of course such an evening belongs to the kids, especially the smallest of them. And when the tree was lit 2 year-old Alexandria Overcamp and her mom Andrea took special pride. They hail from Seymour. What drew them to New Haven’s splendid Green was the tree. “It comes from the property behind our church,” said Andrea Overcamp, “St. Augustine’s, and we’re really proud.”

Then mother and daughter returned intently to the business of riding Mr. Polar Bear around the flagpole.

In addition to the city and its various departments, among the long list of groups, organizations and companies contributing to the event were Yale-New Haven Hospital, McDonald’s, members of the Long Wharf Theater’s “A Civil War Christmas” cast, WTNH, which provided the master-of-ceremony services, and Dunkin’ Donuts.

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