By Peter Lyons Hall

Dozens of vendors and a large caravan of food trucks participated in Greenwood Lake’s largest Holiday Festival at its new venue, Winstanley Park on Windermere Ave. during a sunny but seasonally chilly day on Saturday, November 25, 2023, attracting hundreds of local and visiting family members throughout the area.

 Pixie Pop the Clown (sponsored by the PBA) was adorned in a Christmas Tree Costume. A long line of kids wanted her to paint their faces or create balloon animals for them to take home. Santa Claus and his Elf helpers sat atop a huge stand, greeting kids and listening to their rationales of why they should receive certain gifts this season. And vendors like the Laker Baker, Heather Bradford and her assistant, Alyssa Kenney, provided visitors with fresh-baked cookies, cakes, and muffins to accompany the coffees, hot chocolate, and cider offered by other nearby vendors.

One visitor, Monn, from Pakistan, travels with his family to the US during holidays throughout the year. “I like to visit Greenwood lake; I search out many things in US [and] Greenwood lake is very nice and peaceful area,” he admitted. But there were plenty of local families enjoying the event, as well. “This event is unbelievable, amazing; you know there’s no towns around this area that do anything like this. We‘ve visited other places and they had nothing like this; it’s just a nice community,” revealed Patrick Reilly, who was accompanied by his wife and family members, Charlotte, Reilly, and Roseanne.

Meanwhile, Boy Scout, Zachary Travino, informed attendees about the need to preserve habitats for the local bat population that helps control the insect population, particularly mosquitoes that carry diseases like West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE, “triple E”), a very rare but serious threat to people, horses and other mammals, some birds, reptiles and amphibians that live in the northeast. Troop 121 sells the homemade bathouses for $25 and are available by emailing kminns_1@yahoo.com.

 The event began at noon and lasted throughout the day, with plenty of holiday music supplied by a DJ to entertain the festival-goers. As the time drew close to 5PM and the sun went down revealing a brilliant full moon, the crowd was treated to a series of performances by the children’s choir, the Sheahan Gormley Irish Dancers, and by the Warwick High School Chorus who sang several popular Christmas carols in preparation for the lighting of the new tree recently planted by Boy Scouts Troop 121. Then the countdown began and suddenly the 15-foot spruce came alive with strands of colored lights and a star at the top.

 After thanking those who helped to plan and implement the event, the Festival Chair, Colleen Dwyer, urged those who had not yet visited the lighted pathway in the woods at the edge of the park to do so. A giant inflatable replica of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, together with a large Christmas Tree, welcomed visitors near the entrance of the path, lit with a variety of Holiday-themed characters and brilliantly-lit stations along the way.

 To view photos of the Holiday Festival and learn about many upcoming events associated with Greenwood Lake’s Centennial celebration in 2024, click on GWLNY.org.