Burlington Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

I should probably write about Thanksgiving, but seeing as I had a stomach bug or something I didn't figure it would make for great writing material (unless you go to that website I stumbled on when googling "why does my son plug the toilet every time?") so I figured I'd write about something a little less TMI.

Last week I heard mention of the tree lighting ceremony that takes place in downtown Burlington every year the day after Thanksgiving.  I made a mental note (always futile) to go this time since I have never been.  Fast forward through the unpleasantness of the illness, coupled with the overwhelming of the holiday and my distraction of watching every Black Friday iPhone video out there of something resembling large amounts of cattle being herded into a barn way too small and then fighting over the last bit of hay and, well, I forgot.  Until 15 minutes before we should be there, that is.

We decided to go on a walk around town since it was 57 degrees out (with 40mph gusts of wind but whatev) and I had been laying in bed for far too long.  Autumn just wanted Daddy to hold her.

Daddy tried to put her down...

Daddy said "No liefe you can walk a bit"

When we had just gotten back from a walk and had kind of settled into the couch it dawned on me.  I jumped up, looked up the time for the lighting, and we jumped in the car (much to Autumn's dismay as she was watching Shawn the Sheep) and headed out.  We found parking right off as the college students are all gone and I grabbed my big heavy tripod and pretended I had a bunch of self confidence as I marched with it through the huge crowd of screaming kids and parents.  We got to the front of where the tree ceremony was and for some reason WPTZ thought it was a good idea to park their mobile news van with it's cherry picker on top smack dab in front of the right side of the pavilion.  If they had backed up or moved it to the right, or better yet NOT PARKED THERE AT ALL there would have been a ton more space for PEOPLE to stand!  I mean, what is the point of having a FAMILY festival if huge amounts of prime square footage are taken up by the news van?  Is this festival really that newsworthy that you have to ruin it for the actual spectators so the people at home who didn't put effort into coming out can watch 10 seconds of footage or less about it and then forget it even happened?  There was also this pavilion which was quite large and planted directly in front of the tree so you could really only see the top half of the tree itself.  I would have stayed and watched the show, but between the news van thingy and the other obstacles that are posted around that part of Church Street, I said no way.

Around back of the tree where we ended up.  The guy in the pic is I assume one of the news videographers.

I decided that we should go to the other side of the tree where you can't see the show but the entire tree was in full view.  We walked over to that side and of course there was another big ol' white van parked there, but way fewer people and we were able to comfortably stand there (I with my tripod ready and waiting) and not feel crushed.  I really am not sad that I missed Shumlin's "Eff You Irene" speech (I think I already heard it at Tunbridge Fair), or the caroling, or the Christmas story that doesn't tell the actual story of Christmas at all, or the Santa Claus that would have scared the crap out of Autumn.  I purely wanted to see big, gaudy, colorful TREE.

We stood for about 30 minutes in the slanting rain and thankfully warmish winds waiting for 6:02pm SHARP for the tree to be lit.  They did a countdown and on 2 I whipped my sweatshirt off of my camera and clicked.  Unfortunately right at that moment I must have moved my camera forward too far and my initial shots came out slightly out of focus.

First shot as the tree lit up.  I had Manual Focus on because it was so dark before the lights were turned on.

This one is a little better because I turned Auto Focus back on.

I wasn't satisfied so we crossed the street to the I think Unitarian (Episcopalian?  Universalist?  I have no idea) Church yard which is slightly elevated and I took these shots:

We went to the Lake Champlain Chocolate outlet store and got Peppermint Hot Cocoa and then went over to the mall to use the bathrooms and sit down to drink our treats.

 Autumn was being really good, but did get a little antsy toward the end.

She was so tired though and was running on donut holes and Swedish Fish.  Mom of the Year award goes to me again.

Sitting in Daddy's "nest"

Then because I've always wanted to get pics of Church Street Christmas lights at night when the street was wet and reflective I started going to different points and taking pictures.

My favorite pic

the news van behemoth

random kids noticing the tree

 Not really as good an outcome as I had hoped because they were taking their sweet time taking everything down and the news van was still squatting in the street like a giant sheep.  Yes I've been watching too much British claymation farm animal shows.  I'll be going back another night when there is less going on and its later in the night so I can really set up how I want to.