From humble beginnings
Each Christmas season, the Higgins Township Fire Department decorated the large tree on the corner of Lake Street and Fourth Street, where the CRAF Center stands today. Back then the building was still the Gerrish-Higgins Middle School. Jim Mahoney, the Roscommon High School choir director, organized Christmas caroling.
Over the years it grew to include coffee, hot cocoa, cider and doughnuts. To bring more families out, children were invited into a coloring contest: about 1,000 outline drawings of a Christmas tree went to elementary and preschool classes, and the winners received savings bonds.
Print the Christmas in the Village coloring page and color it just like those children did.
Growth through the 1980s
By the mid-1980s the festivities ran all day Saturday, with some events outside the village. Breakfast With Santa was held at the Knights of Columbus Hall as a fundraiser for the Roscommon Cooperative Nursery School, and the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church of the North on County Road 103 held a cookie sale.
The committee and the first Candle Walk
In 1994, Judy Kominek formed a committee called Christmas in the Village. That same year, the Village of Roscommon bought the old middle school for $1.00 after the new middle school opened outside town. It became a community building, named the CRAF Center (Community Recreation Activities and Fitness) by Joann Tyler.
That year brought the first Candle Walk, Judy Kominek's idea from her years in Flushing, which held a similar event. Working in an empty CRAF Center classroom, the committee collected gallon milk jugs, cut holes in their sides, filled the bottoms with sand and set a votive candle in each. Nearly 1,000 jugs were loaded onto snowmobile trailers and set out at dusk along the four main streets leading away from Lake and Fifth.
The volunteers also put out burn barrels, roasted chestnuts, led caroling and gave hayrides before the tree lighting. And Santa coming to town to visit the children was an absolute necessity.
New members and new ideas
Each new volunteer brought new ideas. The Lions Club set up a grill in front of Ace Hardware: donate a canned good, get a hot dog. The canned goods went, and still go, into baskets for families in need.
Businesses decorated with lights, and a craft show opened in the old Cherven drug store, now the Roscommon Village Hall. Over the years came greens in the cement flowerpots, a Santa House, a free Friday-night concert of local talent and a bigger craft show. Ice sculptures gave way to wood carving demonstrations when the weather proved too unpredictable, and free children's movie matinees were added for the price of a canned good.
The Electric Light Parade
The Electric Light Parade began in the late 1990s with just three entries. Today more than 30 take part, thanks to the imagination of local businesses, organizations and area fire departments. Santa and Mrs. Claus always arrive at the end.
Today
The Roscommon Model Train Club joined several years ago, building model train displays and running trains in store windows around the village.
Christmas in the Village is now held the first Saturday of December. Most of the activities above are still part of the tradition. The craft show takes place in the CRAF Center, with a Kids' Corner where children make a Christmas gift. When the streets close, more than 800 luminaries light the scene.
The original tree is no longer healthy enough to serve as the village Christmas tree, so after a group countdown, Santa and everyone gathered light the two spruce trees in the village square. Then the children visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus.
None of it could happen without the year-round dedication and hard work of the Christmas in the Village committee.