Large Gathering for the Awards Ceremony

Dateline: Dec. 21, 2019
Photos by Jeff Venegas and Michael Frascinella

See if you can follow the tree as it flies down the page! It's like watching a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landing.

On a rainy, wet Saturday afternoon, the meeting room at the Allenstown Community Center on Whitten St. filled up quickly with dozens of adults and children eager to see which homes won the EDC Christmas/Holiday Lighting Contest.

 

The event was originally scheduled to take place at Town Hall, but the rain forced the Economic Development Committee to reschedule it to a larger indoor location.

 

As an added attraction, the ARD Student Council and their teachers held a fund raiser. They set up a few tables with logo merchandise and a few other tables with hot chocolate and tasty pastries.

 

To add a festive flair to the event, the ARD Chorus started off with a few Christmas carols.

 

The Chorus Director let on that the boys might have been a little shy about singing in public.

 

After leading us in several songs, EDC member Jeff Venegas introduced EDC Chairman, Mike Frascinella, who conducted the awards presentations. Mike explained how the Holiday Lighting Contest came about and how it was conducted totally via the Town web site, Facebook site, and e-mail.

EDC members were taken by surprise when they counted the votes. It turned out that two homes were tied for Best Lawn Decorations. So this meant last minute scrambling for another trophy and gift certificate.

The award for Best House Decorations went to the Laflamme family at 45B River Rd. Their house and shrubs were covered with hundreds of lovely light strings.

 

The first award for Best Lawn Decorations went to the Ouellette family at 17 Letendre Ave. Their theme was making cartoon characters come alive.

 

The second award for Best Lawn Decorations went to the Klawes family at 6 Kenwood Drive off Deerfield Rd. Keith Klawes, the Budget Committee Chairman, let his daughter accept the award. He later explained that he had taught her to use power tools and that she constructed much of their lawn decorations.

 

Once the awards ceremony was concluded, the ARD Chorus led us in singing several more Christmas carols.

 

For the final activity, we held a countdown for the tree lighting ceremony.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Merry Christmas!

The next day, the tree was relocated to the Gazebo at Town Hall.

What to Do Next

First of all, the EDC team wishes to send out a very big

to the people who contributed their time and effort to make the Awards Ceremony an enjoyable and memorable event.

Michelle Kelly was instrumental in organizing the ARD Student Council's efforts to offer school logo merchandise and the hot chocolate and baked goods.
Sandra Kimball was a parent volunteer who helped coordinate the donations of baked goods.
And Mike Kenyon did a great job with the Student Chorus. They got us in the Christmas spirit by leading us in the singing of many carols and holiday favorites.

We also hope that Shannon Kruger, the ARD Principal, can inform the students and parents about this article which commemorates a great community event. Music, food, and fun combined to make for a happy time together.

Next, drive around town now that there is snow again and enjoy looking at the lights. You should also think about entering your home in next year's contest. The trend these days is to replace the incandescent light strings with LED light strings which give a more dramatic glow. They cost much less to operate and you can connect many strings in a row without blowing a fuse on the light string.

The EDC hopes to have more homes registered and more people voting. We are even considering 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards to give more people a chance to win.