A photo essay. To view all 14 images, check out the email version.
Last night on the New Haven Green, at the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting, holiday cheer went round and round, and not just on the merry-go-round.
It began at 4 p.m., when the primary light was a waning sun. By 5, merrymakers were arriving in droves, kids pulling their parents and parents pulling their kids to the rides or the petting zoo or the Readmobile. By 6, youth choirs were caroling, and the line to see Santa was longer than even the most optimistic Christmas wish list. By 7, a thick crowd had gathered around the main stage, where NBC Connecticut co-anchors Kerri-Lee Mayland and Kevin Nathan had taken up emcee duties. By 7:27, when the countdown clock struck zero, the crowd had surrounded the hulking evergreen, raucously cheering as the lights flipped on.
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Hours later, after the throng had gone and the equipment too, the tree became a totem for more personal and private basking. Here and there, a person or three would be drawn to the twinkling cone rising up from the flat expanse, finding a quieter joy in the lights wound round their city’s proud tree.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
