Holiday Preparations Bring MDI Together as Volunteers Deck the Island

Carrie Jones

Dec 04, 2025

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Psychiatry.

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BAR HARBOR—Jonathan Robles worked Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. He’ll probably do the same tonight. He’s okay with it.

That’s because it’s for the holidays and the community.

“It’s been a week,” Robles said, smiling, as he stood outside the Bar Harbor Village Green’s gazebo, camera in hand, gazing on a 14-foot tree that had just been secured in a homemade, rugged tree stand composed of two-by-fours and two-by-sixes and a whole lot of screws.

The Chamber Director Everal Eaton had the same look: tired but happy.

Robles is the Chamber’s events and marketing manager and getting the town ready for the Village Holidays event is his job, Eaton’s job, the Chamber staff’s and a bunch of board members and volunteers.

Jennifer Byer (special events coordinator of Friends of Acadia) teamed up with Kay Keaney (Island Connections’ events and volunteer coordinator) and Bar Harbor Town Councilor Steven Boucher (Acadia Realty) to cut the end off the tree.

Byer and Keaney laughed throughout the process. The tree was hoisted. The tree was positioned correctly thanks to two strong kicks to the trunk’s bottom by Byer’s shoe. The tree was adjusted. And it was adjusted again.

“Is it straight?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Yeah, it looks good.”

“It’s a tree. Trees are meant to be perfectly straight.”

Names for the tree were suggested.

All around Mount Desert Island and Trenton, lights go up.

Trees are launched back into a standing position and son-of-a-nutcracker, it looks pretty great.

Lights start to go up.

Strands are checked to see if they work. Sometimes they do. Sometimes not so much.

Again and again, moments of joy and laughter break through all the work. People are proud of sawing through the massive trunk. As little snowflakes fall, people take moments to sigh, to stand and look at the new white lights on the gazebo, at the giant tree outside it and just have a tiny bit of satisfaction of being part of something that’s meant for someone else.

Tomorrow night children and adults will gather around the tree. Based on years past, some will frolic, some will sing, some will shyly hold onto their parent’s leg or hand. Some will rush up to Santa unafraid before he reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and declare their undying love.

Yes, before then there’s a litany of decorating to do. For Bar Harbor, this year, there are new lights in the gazebo and the tree isn’t inside the gazebo, but outside on the lawn. There will also be lights and decorations at Agamont Park this year. In Mount Desert, Saturday, Santa and Mrs. Claus will arrive via ship. In Tremont later on this month, he’ll light a lobster trap tree. In Southwest Harbor, he’ll take a ride on a fire truck for the festivities.

There will be celebrations and magic galore in the Mount Desert Island Region this December.

Even as events tweak or improve, some things are still the same—at the Chamber’s event and all the others in the upcoming months—staff and volunteers are planning, organizing, lifting trees, making things as perfect as they can be, going out of their way—in multiple ways—to make community.

People can always stop to help and volunteer to help the Bar Harbor Chamber or at any of the upcoming events in other towns.

As Buddy says in Elf, “There’s room for everyone on the ‘nice list.’”

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MORE INFORMATION

If you want to help, you can email Jonathan@VisitBarHarbor.com. The Chamber’s Village Holidays is sponsored by Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, Versant Power, MDI YMCA and Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium.

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ALL THE EVENTS WE KNOW OF FRIDAY

Here are the events we know of for just this Friday. Check here for all our holiday events.

Holiday Craft Fair. Atlantic Oceanside, Bar Harbor.

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Island Arts Association makes 50 look really good.

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Holiday Crafternoon, Jesup Library, Bar Harbor.

3 – 4:30 p.m. It’s a holiday crafternoon at the library with Mike Duffy.

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Village Holiday Tree Lighting & Santa Comes to Town. Bar Harbor.

Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce sponsors a tree lighting and Santa on the Village Green.

4:30 p.m. Gather for hot chocolate and cookies.

5 p.m. Santa arrives, reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and lights the tree.

A short time later: Santa and crew head to the MDI YMCA via Main Street. Photos, crafts and more all happen in the Y’s gym on Park Street.

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Village Holiday Sale. Downtown Bar Harbor.

6 to 10 p.m. Many local businesses will be open for sales and shopping. You can see who will be open late here.

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Bar Harbor Congregational Church Nativity Scene, Mount Desert Street, Bar Harbor.

6 p.m. The annual Living Nativity Scene happens outside the Bar Harbor Congregational Church. It usually lasts about an hour and fifteen minutes.

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A Christmas Story!

7 p.m. The Acadia Community Theater presents “A Christmas Story” at the Acadia Repertory Theater in Somesville.

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Unless otherwise stated, all photos: Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story

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A NOTE FROM US

This is Carrie and Shaun, and as you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been working hard at the Bar Harbor Story, providing local news in a way that keeps you informed, but also embraces and promotes community and the good that is within it.

We take so much time—just the two of us, with a special needs kid that has to be homeschooled—to cover our island community’s (plus, Trenton) local news in a way that’s timely, daily, and remembers that underneath the news . . . there are people who are our neighbors.

We are working hard to get the news out there—for free—for everyone. But it’s taking its toll on our family financially and honestly, sometimes, emotionally, because frontline local news in a small community? It’s hard.

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Richard Stengel, writing in The Atlantic, said, “Paywalls create a two-tiered system: credible, fact-based information for people who are willing to pay for it, and murkier, less-reliable information for everyone else. Simply put, paywalls get in the way of informing the public, which is the mission of journalism.”

As a paper that is owned and staffed only by locals, we make every attempt to gather all of the facts for our readers, information that might not be part of the main story and/or information that may not be known even to our towns’ officials, but is still just as important, if not more important, to the story.

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