Thousands celebrate Nashua’s Winter Holiday Stroll

Of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people who filled downtown Saturday for the 16th Winter Holiday Stroll, there seemed few more joyous or in the mood to celebrate than Paula Burpee and John Mandziej.

Burpee and Mandziej danced cheek to cheek on West Pearl Street as the Transistors laid down a blue-eyed soul version of “My Girl.” Then, the couple boogied as the group belted out “Pretty Woman” and “Dirty Water.”

“They’re awesome,” Burpee exclaimed about the band, a group of middle-age men with a tight, hard-driving sound that honored these oldies hits.

“That’s something for the 60-year-olds,” she said.

“That brought us back to when we were dating at Hampton Beach,” a beaming Mandziej said.

Mandziej and Burpee were high school sweethearts whom life had separated for 32 years. They’ve been a couple again for the last 10, and as such enjoy the Winter Holiday Stroll together “every year,” Burpee said.

The stroll has a knack for bringing couples, families and the community together. Clear and windy with a bearable chill, the weather helped encourage a large turnout of families and friends of all ages, from groups of teenagers and preteens to senior citizens. The annual street fair of food, music and other

entertainment is always held the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a time when families traditionally reunite.

As a vintage 1950 fire engine carried Santa Claus from City Hall to the Hunt Memorial Building to open the festivities at 5 p.m., thousands of carolers trailed behind. There were fewer candles this year because of the wind, but lots of glow-sticks, as well as the staples of kids wearing red Santa hats and felt Rudolph antlers. Some younger children sat in red wagons that parents pulled up Library Hill.

“Take a look behind you,” Mayor Donnalee Lozeau told the crowd as she spoke into a microphone at the lighting of the city Christmas Tree by the Hunt Building.

The crowd gathered near the tree turned to see a river of people flowing south down Main Street. Sue Butler, executive director of Great American Downtown, organizer of the stroll, said earlier that she expected a record turnout of more than 30,000.

The stroll is a fundraiser for GAD, which markets the downtown and sponsors other events to attract people to the city’s downtown restaurants and retail shops.

“Give yourself a hand,” Lozeau said. “That pumpkin festival somewhere else has nothing on us,” the mayor said, referring to the Keene festival that has landed the western New Hampshire town in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Christmas tree this year has been restored to its original spot outside the Hunt Building – in recent years, the tree had been located a half block south in Railroad Square.

This year, the evergreen is truly green, as it’s lit with red, green and blue energy-efficient LED lights, Lozeau said.

Of course, children cared not a whit about crowd sizes or energy efficiency. They were there to see Santa, who later received children from an outdoor location on the west side of Main Street.

Friends Aleana Nicole Brown, 5, and Shyanne Dry, 6, asked Santa for tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. Meanwhile, Brown’s cousin, Jennifer Delacruz, 13, who was visiting from Lynn, Mass., had a simpler request for the Jolly Old Elf.

“All I want is a bubble-gum candy cane,” she said. “I even asked Santa for one.”

A short way down the street, Luis Cruz took his daughter Mia, 8, to have her picture taken with “Jack,” the 2,200-pound Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale.

Mia smiled, saying she thought it was cool that the horse was so big but only had a little tail.

The stroll featured magicians, men in Colonial dress playing “Jingle Bells” and other songs on a fife and drum, rock, jazz and country music bands, and folk guitarists. Stages were set up in several locations, and some musicians performed inside various downtown businesses.

There also was a beer garden set up on a side street, plus a couple of food courts. New this year: a dozen downtown restaurants sold food outside, making the stroll as much a food festival as anything else.

One complaint made by several families: There was no face-painting this year, and the stroll seemed to have fewer activities for children, they said. However, the glow-sticks and glow lightsabers were a hit with kids, as was a showing of the classic cartoon “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” which was projected onto the side of a building on East Pearl Street.

Another popular attraction was the group of ice sculptors outside City Hall, which attracted a large crowd of spectators throughout the evening.

Alyssa Nadeau, 6, took in the bear, wolf and other sculptures from the vantage point of her dad’s shoulders.

It’s a great way to see over the crowd, Jim Nadeau admitted, “until it breaks my spine.”

Nadeau said he and his family live in Rhode Island. They were in Nashua visiting relatives and were impressed by the stroll, their first, he said.

The festival had a nice atmosphere, Nadeau said.

“It feels safe, very safe,” he said.

Patrick Meighan can be reached at 594-6518 or pmeighan@nashuatelegraph.com.