Craig Bakay | Dec 09, 2020


Ah, 2020, the year where what can go wrong, does.

But sometimes, it’s the effort that counts anyways.

The evening of Dec. 4 started out well, as a good number of Sharbot Lake residents followed a star in the sky (OK, so it was Wade Leonard’s drone) to Soldiers Memorial Hall for the annual tree lighting. Normally, the lighting of the big tree out front signals the beginning of Villages Beautiful’s Festival of Trees, but this year . . . well covid.

No matter, at least we can still light the tree, right?

But, after Township Cryer Paddy O’Connor read the proclamation and Villages Beautiful treasurer Debbie Waite threw the switch . . . well, a few lights at the bottom of the tree went on.

“Everything was working,” said Janet Gutowski, one of the organizers. “Isn’t this just apropos for the year we’re having?”

It turns out that there are these little tiny fuses in the cord of the light strings and one of them burned out. But, that got fixed the next day and the tree was definitely on in all its glory Sunday night.

It’s been quite the year for the tree lighting, Gutowski said.

“We noticed that the star was no longer at the top of the tree,” she said. “We called electrician Adrian Peters to come and move it to the top but his 10-foot bucket truck wasn’t tall enough so we had to get Matson’s Tree Service to come and move the star.

“We thought we had everything taken care of.”

There was supposed to be a luminaria service the same night but the weather didn’t cooperate and so that was cancelled (the bottoms of the paper bags got wet and wouldn’t stand up). It’s been tentatively rescheduled for Dec. 21, the winter solstice.

After the bottom-of-the-tree lighting ceremony, the small crowd mad its way down to Railway Heritage Park for the lighting of the caboose.

As it turns out, nobody told Ron Hollywood the luminaria part of the evening was cancelled and he had a line of luminaria at his place across from the caboose, so there was that.

“We put the luminaria out in memory of my sister-in-law, Cassie,” he said.

They did get the caboose lit up.

“This is the second year we’ve lit up the caboose,” said president Derek Redmond. “We got the hydro in last year just in time.

“We added a little bit this year with lights along the top that we got half price last year at Canadian Tire and lights along the track.

“Maybe next year we’ll add some more and do a little caroling. It’s a work in progress.”

But then on Saturday, things seemed to go a little more according to plan.

More than 150 kids (with their parents driving) showed up for the Drive-By Santa event at the Township offices for a treat from Santa.

“I decided to sponsor this for our community,” said organizer Tina Hillocks of Hillocks Cleaning Services. “Santa is very important to keep our spirits alive.

“You do what you can.”

The Legion also collected food for the food bank and Seed to Sausage collected a lot of toys for their toy drive.

“And a very special thank you to Bob Veley who brought the sleigh out of retirement just for this occasion.”

After the event for the kids, Santa and his crew dropped by the Sharbot Lake Retirement Residents to brighten the seniors’ day.

Support local
independant journalism by becoming a patron of the Frontenac News.