SEASON’S GREETINGS = $6 HOT CHOCOLATE 

I attended the the Holiday Tree Lighting in the Village at Mammoth on Friday, November 29 without the intent of writing about it, but, alas, here I am.

Well, I should say, I attempted to attend the Holiday Tree Lighting in the Village. The event was slated to run from 5 to 7:30 p.m., with live music on the Village Plaza Stage beginning at 5:30 p.m. and the tree lighting set for  6:30 p.m., according to the Mammoth Mountain website.

I arrived around 6 p.m. to see the tree already lit and the stage bare. I was confused, but I bought two $6 (!!)  hot-chocolates from the outdoor bar anyway – with the tip options being 20, 25 and 30%. 

Ho ho ho. 

In the interim, I perused the snow-lined Village shops among children holding hands and dogs wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. Families lined up to take photos with Santa and Mammoth Mountain employees dressed as elves managed the line.

I returned to the plaza just before 6:30 p.m. alongside the other optimistic crowd-members awaiting a Hallmark-movie style scene. Maybe they’d turn the lights off and back on again. Who knew? 

The sound crew was in the process of removing their equipment, and eventually, when enough people had gathered around to raise an eyebrow, a man got on stage and announced to the crowd over the microphone, “As you can see, the tree is already lit,” and bid the group a farewell and goodnight. 

Some people laughed, others booed. Most murmured in confusion, and a few parents around me collected their children and explained the situation. Some kids played absentmindedly alongside the stage, forming perfectly cylindrical snowballs with a plastic gadget and stacking them atop each other. 

We’d all missed the show. The crowd slowly dispersed. 

Which was really a shame, because according to Robert Richards, the Village’s Event Coordinator, it was a “seamless” event, having started at 5:30 p.m. and ended at 6:00 p.m., using the Tree Lighting as the grand finale. Once the show ended, the event was over and they broke everything down, Richards said.

Seamless.

The Holiday Tree Lighting is an annual event, he explained, but event organizers (i.e. Richards) decided to ‘ramp up the excitement’ with a holiday show through a contracted company. He intends to repeat the show-style tree lighting in the coming years.

When I asked him about the 6:30 p.m. crowd, he said, “I don’t know about that. It was over.” It may have been a problem with printing, he said, but he didn’t know and repeated that it was a seamless event.

Seamless. 

So, if you’re going next year, get there early. And if you missed this year’s Village show like I did, the Town of Mammoth Lakes is holding its own, separate Tree Lighting at the Town Ice Rink on Old Mammoth Rd. this Friday night. 

The Town hasn’t hosted its own tree lighting for the first time in years. 

The event is projected to begin at 5 p.m. and have complimentary (!!) hot beverages, s’mores, free skating and holiday music, said Stuart Brown, Parks & Recreation Director. 

The official countdown for the tree lighting will begin at 5:30, Brown said. 

I’ll be there extra early.