How a Maine Hotel Has Turned Giving Into an Annual Holiday Celebration.
Dec 14, 2025
BAR HARBOR—The lights came first, then the ornaments, then the sound of children laughing as parents lingered near craft tables, many realizing—perhaps all at once—that they had stepped into a tradition that had quietly become part of their family’s winter.
“This is a really beautiful thing,” one woman said.
“They are making memories. Right now,” another agreed as she took a photo of her daughter standing with Elsa and Anna from Disney’s “Frozen,” one of many photo opportunities with characters from beloved shows.
Right behind them, a two-year-old giggled and waved creating a chorus of coos before she trotted off, hand in hand with her parent, headed to see Mrs. Claus and Santa who were holding court in the basement of the Atlantic Oceanside, December 13.
The Clauses were there all morning and they were busy as family after family greeted them before posing for photos.
For eleven years, Witham Family Hotels’ Charitable Christmas celebration has been built on a simple idea: that doing good, together, can be its own kind of magic.
Before they even reached the Clauses, children gasped at the lights, the ornaments, the ponies, and the crafts, and most especially a giant Grinch poised at the top of the stairs that headed to Santa.
“Did he scare you?” one mom asked her son who jumped inches into the air as he rounded the corner to the doorway and spotted the giant inflatable Grinch waiting.
“Nah. He’s awesome!” he exclaimed before they trotted together down the stairs.
It was all proof that holiday magic, when carefully made, can still stop people in their tracks.
Some came to just experience a little holiday magic as they entered a space transformed from a hotel and event center into a winter wonderland. Twinkling white lights hung from rafters. Ornaments, a giant book, a massive snow globe, and cookie making stations that would make the North Pole bakers jealous greeted visitors at the free event that grows in both joy levels and attendance levels every year.
This year, there were more people than ever before, according to Witham Family Hotels Human Resources Director Isabelle Legault.
Witham Family Hotels’ Managing Director Jeremy Dougherty previously said there were approximately 650 who attended in 2023, up from approximately 420 in 2022. Last year’s official count was 720 and unofficially over 800.
This year?
Approximately 925 people joined in the festivities.
In the parking lot of the hotel, food booths offered sustenance, bonfires hosted conversations and marshmallow roasting, a petting zoo, and a tented area for eating food.
There is a particular kind of magic that happens when generosity becomes routine, when an annual act of giving transforms into something families plan their winters around.
“So many of us look forward to this event each year. It really fills our cup. Being part of this special community and seeing the kids grow with us year after year is one of the best parts of the season. Some of these kids even come back now as volunteers, helping us spread joy and magic,” Legault said.
Staff drove golf carts and escorted visitors from a hotel parking lot across the street to the entrance where people could drop off a winter clothing item or unwrapped toy and then get a map of the activities.
Through a tunnel of lights, guests walked into a space where they could make ping pong snow globes, custom Christmas beanies, pipe cleaner snowflakes, personalized holiday cards, and Christmas tree ornaments.
Or, they could write letters for Santa who was waiting just downstairs with Mrs. Claus. Being a clever Claus, Santa had stationed himself downstairs near the North Pole Cookie Studio, which all agreed was pretty well played by the jolly old elf.
For the last eleven years, there has been a certain kind of magic that happens in Bar Harbor when the staff of the Witham Family Hotels continue to come together for no other reason than doing good.
“What other company does crafts?” Dougherty, joked last year as he helped with parking outside.
For everyone in the company, the entire week has been about crafts and cooking and decorating for the event.
“People love it,” he’d said.
A year hasn’t changed that at all.
“It’s hard to say that one year was ever better than another, but each year seems to have its own special moments. I’d say for me this year these special moments were the comments that were shared with me from so many that this event has become a tradition for their families and one which their children look forward to so much,” said David C. Witham.
The Bar Harbor Inn’s chef and elves created 600 sugar cookies for the event. But it wasn’t just them. Everyone played a part making enough mac and cheese, tomato soup, hot cider, cheese crostinis, donuts, and short ribs to feed hundreds.
Planning started in June.
Charles de Lint once wrote, “I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
Saturday’s event proved that magic doesn’t just happen when people are alone. It can happen when community members get together to celebrate, to hope, and to give and to appreciate those who are doing it for them and their family. That happens at the event with the litany of gasps and giggles and chuckles and thank yous and hugs.
But it happens beyond the event, too, as families and volunteers create memories that don’t involves screens, but experiences, that they live inside of together.
On Facebook, Saturday, just like last year, the kudos and thanks started rolling in.
“You always knock it out of the park!!! Well done. Thank you for spreading such cheer!” wrote Lori Krupke.
“Thank you to the Witham family. Your generosity is a loving example of how to be,” Robert Krieg wrote.
“Such a sweet event, all of the wonderful helpers were so incredible and kind. Thank you for such a nice community day,” Shelagh Slack McLoughlin wrote.
David Boland Sr. wrote, “Great to have people getting together to celebrate the holidays!”
Food booths, constructed just for the event, featured hot cocoa, soup, ribs, special mashed potatoes. Santa’s Petting Zoo featured the furry and feathered. Pony rides circled the tent right by the zoo.
Event might be too mild a word to explain the joy that happened over and over again as parents beamed down at babies in their arms or lofted them up toward the lights. Kids burnt marshmallows into blackened coals triumphantly though some awed at the goo that’s involved in creating s’mores.
One little boy danced in circles outside on the parking lot, red and white striped legs stomping and prancing. The joy could not be contained.
“We are continually looking at ways to give back to the community, and at some point, someone planted a seed that this would be a great thing for the kids in the area, and we just simply ran with it from there,” said Witham two years ago. “It has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in terms of the joy it has brought to so many of all ages, including our own staff.”
The maestro of joy, Legault is the backbone of the celebration and has been involved since the event first began.
“I remember attending the first celebration, just having started with the company, volunteering with my husband at the ‘Letters to Santa’ table,” she said two years ago. “Back then, the event was much smaller, and we were utilizing only some of the inside upstairs space of the event center at the Atlantic Oceanside.”
All the space is used now for crafting and photos and the Clauses, for a giant snow globe, a book, and just for places to cuddle a baby, hug a neighbor, or if you are under four, there are plenty of nooks to flop around and breathe and play.
“Now that I have young children of my own, the event is even more special,” Legault had said.
According to the Witham Family Hotels Charitable Christmas Facebook page, “We do ask, if you are able, that you bring a new, unwrapped toy to donate to Maine Seacoast Mission or a gently used warm winter coat for H.O.M.E. Inc.”
Presents for local children are brought to Maine Seacoast Mission and dispersed to local charities so that kids can have presents for Christmas. There’s no official count yet about how many toys and coats were collected.
“We spend every season creating unforgettable experiences for our hotel guests, and we are so grateful to be able to do the same for our amazing community and make an impact through our partnership with Seacoast Mission and H.O.M.E. Family matters to us, and that means we care deeply about each other and the people around us,” Legault said.
Planning for the event usually begins in June and it typically takes about 80 volunteers to pull off the celebration. Those volunteers were Witham Family Hotels employees and family members. Many worked on the event all week braving snow storms and cold temperatures to create something special.
As families bundled back into cars and volunteers stacked tables and extinguished bonfires, the lights remained on just a little longer—glowing proof that what happened inside the Atlantic Oceanside was never just about a single December morning. It was about what happens when generosity becomes tradition, when joy is planned for months and shared freely, and when a community chooses, year after year, to make space for wonder.
ABOUT WITHAM FAMILY HOTELS CHARITABLE FUND
Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund was established in 2017 to carry on the philanthropic legacy of hotelier David J. Witham. The Fund is dedicated to supporting local and regional organizations who provide valuable charitable services to our community. Monetary support of the Fund is provided by Witham Family Hotels, a Maine hospitality company based in the Acadia National Park area.
All photos: Carrie Jones/Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story.
We have two posts of photos over here on Facebook.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Witham Family Charitable Christmas
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