Carmel’s Holiday of the Lake This Saturday

The 18th annual Holiday on the Lake celebration will be held along Route 52 in Carmel on Saturday, Dec. 1. Activities fill the day until the highly anticipated Parade of Lights begins at 7 p.m. which concludes with the lighting of 75 decorated trees that line the shore of Lake Gleneida. The event is sponsored by the Hamlet of Carmel Civic Association.

While the Holiday on the Lake ceremony began in 1995, its origin dates back much further.

William Shilling Jr. remembers back in the 1960s when his father and other community members started decorating about 25 trees along Lake Gleneida.

“It was a lot harder electricity-wise back then,” laughed Shilling. “But a lot easier DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] wise.”

The tradition stopped about 10 years later and for decades the Carmel hamlet did not have a festive ceremony to call their own.

“Everything was over in Mahopac,” said Shilling. Then a twist of fate changed the course of things.

“I was calling DEP on another matter,” said Shilling who is an attorney. “While I had them on the phone I asked how come we couldn’t have trees on the lake again. DEP had stopped us from doing it before and after a couple of days they called back and said we could do it.”

That year Shilling worked with a group of community leaders to get 50 trees up and decorated.

“We had the tree lighting and then a party at St James [the Apostle Church],” he said. “In the early years we would worry whether anyone was going to come. Now it has grown so much that is no longer a real concern.”

Food, fun and entertainment have added new dynamics to the celebration over the years.

The Parade of Lights through the hamlet is a local favorite and Shilling credits its origin to Wayne Rider.

“We have a committee that puts the event together and Wayne have been on it from the get go and he always wanted a parade” said Shilling. “To me it just seemed like too much work and too much bureaucracy. But he got it going like eight years ago and it has become one of the big parts of what we do.”

Many of the churches along Route 52 hold their annual holiday bazaars on the tree lighting and this year the Carmel Fire Department is having a pancake breakfast at the firehouse from 9 a.m. to noon. The day has become popular for local organizations to host complementary events which Shilling thinks is great.

“It seems like people are latching on to the day and making it a full day’s worth of things to do,” he said.

The Reed Library has Christmas music for patrons to enjoy from noon to 1 p.m. which is when Santa comes by for a read-a-long with the children. Then at 3 p.m. head over to Cornerstone Park for Chowderfest, caroling and hayrides with Santa.

“This year, in addition to the fun at Cornerstone Park, there are things to do across the street at the Knights of Columbus Hall,” said Shilling. From 3 to 5 p.m. Putnam Humane Society will be having an adopt-a-pet event and Putnam Arts Council will be leading crafts and doing face painting at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

“Every year we try to change it up a little bit and improve upon the year before,” Shilling said. “We will be having the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ play on one of the houses in town to help give it that holiday atmosphere.”

Leading up to the Parade of Lights, Drew Church will be holding a teen rock concert from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m. in its church hall.

Then watch up to 50 floats come up Gleneida Avenue from 7 to 7:45 p.m. during the electric parade. As the finale of the day there will be caroling and the tree lighting at Gleneida Lakeshore from 7:45 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.

Shilling and the committee work hard to include as many parts of the community as possible. “By doing what we do—by getting floats from the businesses, having the restaurants participate in Chowderfest, the hayride for the kids –we feel like there are a lot of reasons to come out,” he said. “Our hope is to have just about every segment of the community have a vested interest in coming down and watching.”

The Holiday on the Lake is a privately funded event. The budget, according to Shilling is $6,000 annually, which is raised primarily through contributions from local attorneys and other businesses.

Of the whole day worth of fun, the part that leaves a smile on Shilling’s face is the end of night. “At the end of the day our hamlet is dressed up really beautifully,” he said. “It is quite a spectacular sight that lasts right through Christmas. It is the start off to the holiday season.”