The first Christmas tree lighting on the Morristown Green, by some accounts, was a simple affair.
One fir tree. One star on top. One-hundred and thirty-five voices gathered round.
One hundred years later, Yule festivities have multiplied on the historic town square. And organizers think that’s something to sing about.
So start rehearsing!
On Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013, you are invited to re-create the caroling that helped start a festival tradition cherished by generations.
Jennifer Wehring of the Morristown Partnership, the business group that has organized the Christmas Festival at the Morristown Green since 2000, said she hopes to surpass the 135-voice choir assembled from area churches a century ago.
Churches, youth groups and the public are being asked to join the Morris Choral Society, a perennial favorite, right after Santa Claus descends from his landing atop the Century 21 department store roof. Start looking for him around 5 pm…and prepare to carol around 6 pm.
The event will kick off Santa’s return to the Santa House on the Green, where he will be guest of honor for three weekends leading to Christmas. Kids can deliver their wish lists and ride an electric train. Families can enjoy crafts demonstrations, ice sculptures, youth performances and a gingerbread house.
In a nod to yesteryear, the Morris County School of Technology in Denville is putting finishing touches on a giant rocking horse to grace the Green.
“When you define a community event, the Christmas Festival at the Morristown Green, as it’s known today, is one of the longest-standing traditions in Morristown. To be the organization that carries this on is an honor,” said Jennifer, who remembers her own childhood visits at Christmas.
The annual holiday activities–which attracted 10,000 visitors last December, by Jennifer’s estimate– are funded by more than $100,000 in donations from businesses and institutions, she said.
“We do it for the fun of kids,” Jennifer said. “And we’re also showing that Morristown is a destination.”
FROM A SOLITARY STAR TO MOVIE STARS
It began in the year between the Titanic and World War I. Babe Ruth’s first pitch for the Boston Red Sox was still months away.
The date of the initial Christmas tree lighting on the Green appears certain.
But the tree’s identity is another matter. A town proclamation in 1998 described it as a fir tree with a solitary star on top. Another source lists it as a Norwegian Spruce.
According to Just Like the Ones We Used to Know, Christmas Past in Morristown, A Souvenir, also published in 1998, this colossal spruce towered 54 feet above the Green, with a girth of 25- to 30 feet.
It sported colored electric lights and an adjacent electric star, contends the book, authored by the late Michael Reilly, who organized Christmas-on-the-Green festivals for years.
It looks like the caroling merits an asterisk, too.
While the tree was lit on a “very rainy Christmas night,” the weather postponed the singing until the evening of Jan. 1, 1914, the book claims.
It took a few decades for Christmas on the Green to become a big production. Santa started dropping in just before World War II. After the war, he got his own pad on the Green. For a while, it was an ornate Victorian-style structure. Across the street, Epstein’s Department Store–now replaced by luxury condos–featured spectacular animated window displays.
In the 1980s, a Christmas parade featured actor Ed Begley Jr. and other stars, said electrician Jim McGovern.
Today, more than 150,000 light bulbs decorate the two-acre square. Some 90 percent of them are of the energy-saving LED variety, Jim said proudly.
The volunteer firefighter, who is 57, remembers his father taking him and his brothers and sister to see Santa on the Green.
“We waited for that all year,” Jim said. The weather usually was frosty; one year stands out because Santa brought 70 balmy degrees with him.
In those days Santa descended from above the Kresge’s five and dime on the night after Thanksgiving, Jim said.
Now long gone, that store was only a reindeer’s hop from the present landing spot. The event’s date also has moved, to the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Santa still gets an assist from the Morristown Fire Department. Judging by the lines of kids outside the Santa House, one can safely say that Mr. Kringle continues to boast approval ratings that any president would envy.
‘THE BEST PRESENT EVER’
Incandescent or LED, the memories burn brightly.
Petra Lochner-Schochet remembers being the first child to enter the Santa House, where two clowns greeted her.
It was back in 1964 when my parents and I immigrated to the United States from Germany and settled down in Parsippany, New Jersey. It was my very first Christmas in the US. As a small child arriving from a rather dull country as far as fantasy and creativity is concerned, I was stunned by all the beautifully decorated homes with bright, sparkling lights and colorful decorations. One day, one of my friend’s moms took us to Santa Land to the Christmas Festival to see Santa and to tell him our Christmas wishes at his house.
Some of the most poignant recollections date to World War II. This one is from Michael Reilly’s picture book:
In September 1941, with my father already in the service, my mother and I moved to Morristown to live with my grandmother. Leaving Brooklyn and my friends made me one unhappy and homesick six-year-old. Then on an early December evening, my mother took me to my first Santa arrival! I lived in the same town as Santa! Not a Santa like those on Manhattan street corners or in the Department stores, but the real Santa. From that night on I looked at life in Morristown in a whole new way…. –A.C.H., Madison
And this one, too:
My greatest memory of Christmas in Morristown was the night Santa arrived in 1945–December 7th to be exact. My big brother arrived home unexpectedly after nearly three years in the army. He was told by our neighbors that my parents had taken me and my younger sister up to the Green to watch Santa come down the ladder. Even in the crowds he found us. Our family was reunited and whole again. It was the best present we could ever receive. –B.L.P., Phoenix, Az
Jennifer Wehring, whose many hats include Engineer’s Cap for the Santa choo-choo on the Green, still has many Christmas festivals ahead of her. She knows she is a lucky lady.
“To have Santa in my cell phone–how special is that?”
VIDEOS: SANTA ARRIVALS IN MORRISTOWN:
CHRISTMAS ON THE GREEN: MILESTONES
1938: After “landing” on the Park Square Building without ceremony, Santa distributes candy, collects letters, and beats a hasty retreat to other towns.
1940: Girl Scouts sing, church bells ring, and Santa opens the Santa Claus Post Office and Christmas Wonderland, a “fairyland of storybook characters.”
1941: WOR radio host “Uncle Don” invites listeners to visit Morristown’s “Christmas Fairyland.”
1942: The wartime government nixes Christmas lighting; only Santa’s Post Office remains.
1943 and 1944: Bah humbug! The holiday program is suspended. Blame the Axis Powers.
1945: Religious symbols come to the Green, with a diorama of the Three Wise Men.
1947: Students from six area schools decorate a Children’s tree.
1948: St. Nick finally gets his own house, in the all new Santa Land. No more hasty visits. A Nativity scene is added and schools ask kids not to demolish the decorations.
1949: Rocking Horses are introduced.
–Source: Just Like the Ones We Used to Know, Christmas Past in Morristown, A Souvenir.
Wonder what ever happened to all the animated displays that used to be in Epsteins window? I was hoping they would be put up for sale when Epsteins had their big closing sale. No such luck. It would be awesome to have something like that again. Too bad half the stores are unoccupied or bars.