Santa will be there, with his reindeer, as the Ypsilanti community kicks off the Christmas season with a Dec. 1 tree-lighting celebration in Depot Town.
The celebration centers around the Ypsilanti Freighthouse, at 100 Market Place, and runs from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The tree lights will be turned on at 5:30 p.m.
Depot Town shops and restaurants will light up for the holiday season, and many will be open for shopping and sustenance during the Sunday night tree-lighting event, business district organizers said in promoting the event.
Families attending will be able to write letters to Santa and enjoy cookies. Also expected for the evening are unicorn rides, and a petting farm, according to the website for Ypsi Real, the city's tourism office.
The community celebration around the tree-lighting is just one of many planned across the country this week. The community tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City will be turned on Wednesday, Dec. 4 and can be watched live. This year, the tree is a 74-foot-tall, and 43-foot-wide Norway spruce. The tree lighting will air as part of at two-hour live show on NBC, and the Peacock app. The show, called "Christmas at Rockefeller Center," starts at 8 p.m.
Christmas trees -- both inside and outside the home -- have been part of the holiday celebration for centuries.
Historians note that records of Christmas trees being cut for display can be found in the 1820s in Pennsylvania's German communities. However, the use of evergreens in celebrations can be traced back further, even to Egyptian cultures. Historic records also support the idea that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, launched a tradition of bringing trees covered in candles into the home to celebrate Christmas.
In 1747, the community display Christmas tree in Pennsylvania was a “wooden pyramid decorated with candles,” historians reported on the History Channel website, history.com. Although up until the middle of the 1800s, Christmas trees were not widely accepted by most Americans because they were described as pagan symbols.
By the 1890s, however, that began to change.
"Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about 4 feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to extend from floor to ceiling," historians on the History Channel's website, history.com, said.
The first time a community Christmas tree was displayed at the Rockefeller Center was in 1931. The tree had no lights and was put up on a construction site by the workers there. Two years later, another Christmas tree went on display with light decorations. This year, the Rockefeller Center tree will be covered with 50,000 multi-colored LED lights.
Back in Ypsilanti, the celebration Sunday will include unicorn rides, Santa’s reindeer, Santa, Mrs. Clause, and musical entertainment from the Ypsilanti Youth Choir.
There will be a petting farm with a mini horse, donkey, sheep, goats, ducks, and more. After the tree-lighting celebration, inside the Freighthouse will be cookies, hot chocolate, and cider. Children attending the event can also write letters to Santa.
Admission is free for the Ypsilanti event. Sponsors for the celebration include Depot Town CDC, SideTrack, Ypsilanti DDA, Aubree’s Pizzeria and Grill, Guernsey Farm Dairy, Washtenaw County, Fischer Honda, and more.
