The city of Berlin held a lighting the park ceremony and the 38th annual holiday parade on Nov. 16. People within the community were able to adopt and then decorate trees at Nathan Strong Park. Community members could decorate their trees up until the start of the ceremony.  At 5 p.m. the entire park and all the trees were lit at one time. 

The lighting of the park consisted of 171 trees, including a community tree, which is more than previous years, and each tree was decorated by different groups. Until the beginning of the parade, Santa and Mrs.Claus were seated in the gazebo to visit with local children.

“I love the lighting of the park, seeing all the gorgeous lights and the excited kids is really great,” Santa Claus said.

The holiday parade consisted of multiple business floats, including Santa and Mrs.Claus, as well as performances from both the middle and high school bands. Drum Major Justin Polakowski is in charge of keeping the band’s pace.

“The parade itself went pretty well, and the weather was really nice,” Polakowski said. “The only thing that went wrong was the band was moving a little slowly.”

Santa and Mrs.Claus were also featured in the parade, riding in a horse-drawn carriage. Junior Pedro Rivera and his dad drove the carriage.

“We’ve been driving the carriage in the parade for three years. We also use it for weddings and special events all across the state as well as Illinois and Minnesota,” Rivera said.

The parade and lighting festival was presented and sponsored by Farmers and Merchants Bank along with Achieving a Better Community. 

According to Achieving a Better Community’s website, “Achieving a Better Community, Inc. is a non-profit organization of volunteers from the Berlin Community and surrounding area. We volunteer our time to involve businesses and community members to help sponsor, organize and promote upcoming events. As a non-profit, per Dept. of Revenue regulations, all proceeds are used to cover event expenses.”