Last year, children wanted iPhones; this year, unicorns

Breakfast with Santa a long-standing Festival of Lights tradition

Tue, 11/27/2018 - 1:00pm

    ROCKLAND – Rockland Main Street’s Festival of Lights culminated Sunday, November 25, at the Eclipse, 2 Park Drive with a Breakfast with Santa. Families dined on pancakes and sausage. After breakfast the children took their turns on Santa’s knee to whisper their secret wish list for this Christmas.

    Chris Kringle himself gave us the inside scoop. It was sort of a straight-from-the-reindeer’s-mouth kind of report.

     “A lot of requests for unicorn types of things and a lot of requests for Legos,” he said. “Last year, it was iPhones and iPads.”

    Rockland Main Street’s Gordon Page said it was a great weekend for the Festival of Lights.

    “The Lobster Trap Tree Lighting on Saturday night was just shoulder-to-shoulder people,” he said. “There were people inside the park, outside the fence and across the street. Midcoast Music Academy provided the music and Santa was in his workshop. You know we really don’t give enough credit to our wonderful volunteers and sponsors.”

    Page said the parade edges on Saturday night was filled wall-to-wall with people.

    “It was a parade crowd that rivals the Lobster Festival,” he said. “It was really special. We had 30 floats all lit up. Families were packed. It was a little cold, but it wasn’t windy or wet. The parade went down one direction, turned around and came back the other direction.”

    Page said Breakfast with Santa has always been at the Trade Winds for the past 20, maybe even 30 years.

    “It’s always been here at the Trade Winds,” he said. “The Liberty family has always been very generous with the use of the venue even with the different incarnation of restaurants. The ownerships of different restaurants inside the Trade Winds have always continued those traditions.”

    Page estimate they would feed approximately 250 people.

    Coming in April it will be Rockland Main Street’s Spring Hiring Fair and in June it’s the very popular Summer Solstice Celebration.