It’s me, Gregory Holman, Ozarks Public Radio.
I’m on Park Central Square, checking out a 21st-century tradition… the Springfield Mayor’s Tree Lighting & Holiday Show. It's a balmy late-November day, around 5 p.m.
To my surprise and delight, it’s not long before I meet the Ghost of Christmas Present, layed by a singing actor known known simply as Hawk. He’s in a Springfield Little Theatre production of A Christmas Carol from this holiday season. They were rehearsing on the mainstage before tonight’s holiday performance variety show.
Hawk is crowned with crimson poinsettia flowers, wearing long white robes with a red belt — just like Father Christmas in a Hallmark card. He’s even carrying a staff heavily decorated with bells and boughs and twinkling lights. Played by actor Billy Gowers, Ebenezer Scrooge joins the Ghost of Christmas Present, as they polish up their performance.
I asked them how rehearsal was going.
"Honestly, I looked to my left and I saw my friend there smiling and ready to go forward, so I just went for it," Hawk says.
It’s still tech rehearsal — way before official showtime, but hundreds of people are already here, an hour-and-a-half before kids can see Santa, hours before the city’s 49-foot holiday tree blazes to life to kick off the season in Springfield.
The week before, I was tipped off by a Mayor’s Tree Lighting showrunner that there was another performer I should really try to interview before showtime.
Jessie Cowen — a local singer and dancer with a wide-ranging career stretching back to her childhood — tells me that being part of the Mayor’s Tree lighting has become a personal tradition for her own holiday season: "It's just one of our favorite things to do for the community because it just brings everyone together and it's so happy and joyous, and you can't be out here with these lights in this beautiful kind of winter wonderland we've created and not just be ready for the holidays."
After speaking with Jessie Cowen, and listening to other local performers like opera star Michael Spyres, I catch a glimpse of Springfield’s mayor.
Decked out in a big black topcoat with a tophat and a plaid scarf, Mayor Ken McClure looks like he’s on his way to an important meeting.
But not at city hall.
It’s time for Mayor McClure to sit down with the kids of the community. He addresses the crowd gathered on the town square: "We want to start off with something that is very, very special, and become a very good tradition, and that is reading our favorite story, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.' So I want to invite boys and girls and everyone who feels like they're a young kid to come up and join me on stage as we read this."
Festively dressed youngsters scramble to the Park Central mainstage, some of the littles accompanied by big brother, big sister or a parent. They sit legs-crossed, with wide eyes and open ears, as Springfield's mayor over the past eight years reads the famous Clement Clark Moore poem, also sometimes called "A Visit From St. Nicholas." It's a 201-year-old poem — forming a long American tradition to match a tradition on Springfield’s Park Central Square that’s only about as old as your typical third-grader.
Hundreds of Springfield families were showing up early, and staying all night for the Tree Lighting and Holiday show — clearly a favorite moment for them as it is for the mayor.
