Tree Lighting, Sing-Along Planned

DEARBORN, MI. – Dearborn will mark the beginning of the winter holiday season on Nov. 20 with the city’s annual tree-lighting and sing-along at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center. The event was moved up this year from early December so that it can coincide with the charitable Festival of Trees event. Free admission to the Festival of Trees is offered that night.

The tree-lighting and sing-along is a longstanding Dearborn tradition and gets underway at 5:45 p.m. in the lobby of the Michael A. Guido Theater with performances by the Dearborn Youth Symphony String Quartet and the Dearborn Public Schools Elementary and Secondary Honors Choirs.

The festivities will move outside the theater’s west entrance at 6:35 p.m. for the ceremonial lighting of the City Christmas tree by Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr.—assisted by seven-year-old Fatima Alabdullah from Nowlin Elementary School. That’s also when the community sing-along takes place.

Everyone is then invited back into the lobby for light refreshments and the option of either strolling at no cost through the Festival of Trees—where Santa Claus will welcome children—or a free viewing a full-length presentation of the holiday movie, “The Polar Express,” in the theater.

The annual tree lighting and sing-along is hosted by the Dearborn Recreation & Parks Department and made possible, in part, by generous support from Park Place Catering and the Dearborn Lions Club.
For further information, call (313) 943-2350.

Photo courtesy of the city of Dearborn