I’ve lived in Portland for twenty-three Christmas tree lightings and finally, on the twenty-fourth time, I attended.
While I didn’t love how many times they wanted us to clap for their sponsors (three times over the course of an hour; the sponsor names were prominently displayed around the stage; it felt like the sponsors were very needy) I did enjoy this evening of cheer and signing.
Good old Thomas Lauderdale loves a community sing along, and China Forbs loves to sing. We also got performances by a variety of choral groups.
There was a bouncing ball, and the person in charge of that had a hard job. The lyrics on screen didn’t always match up with what we were singing.
Santa came out to flip a massive light switch after we counted down from 10, and the tree was suddenly alight. I enjoyed that a few of the bulbs started to flash as we got closer to one, before the entire tree was ablaze.
Thanks to Pioneer Square (and their sponsors, of course) for putting together this community celebration.