As the holiday season kicks into high gear in Hancock County, all eyes will turn to Ellsworth on Saturday, Dec. 7, when the Ellsworth Downtown Merchants Association will sponsor its 10th Annual Christmas Parade.

According to organizers Thelma Beal and Charlotte Fortier, the parade will start forming at 9 a.m. at the Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. office on East Main Street; as more units arrive, the line will extend toward Washington Junction. Beginning at 9:30 a.m., members of Elks Lodge 2743 will judge the floats and award prizes to the best entrants.

The parade will kick off promptly at 10 a.m., travel down Main Street, turn right onto State Street, and proceed over the hill past Ellsworth City Hall and the Hancock County Jail. The units on foot will disband at the Dr. Charles C. Knowlton School, while the floats will disband at the Bryant E. Moore School.

The merchants association has selected “Christmas Is…” as the theme for this year’s parade. “We’re leaving it to the entrants to decide what Christmas is,” Charlotte Fortier said.

Floats can vary in size from pickups and snowmobile trailers to flatbeds. Fortier stressed that wreaths or similar Christmas decorations must adorn all entrants, even the fire trucks and broadcast vans expected to participate in the parade.

The only restriction on decorating floats and vehicles is that “no one can place Santa Claus on their unit,” Fortier said.

“Santa’s arriving separately in a horse-drawn buggy,” she stated.

After the parade, Santa Claus will spend the afternoon meeting children at H.C. Austin Furniture, 107 Main St. This will mark his only official appearance in downtown Ellsworth during the holidays.

Beal and Fortier mailed about 120 invitations to various organizations and contacted 11 area bands. Bands from Ellsworth High School, Sumner Memorial High School, and Maine Maritime Academy will march in the parade.

Other organizations participating in the parade include the Ellsworth City Band, the Parent-Teachers Association from the Knowlton School, the Funsters from the Anah Temple Shrine, Sullivan Head Start, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, area fire departments, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, the Graham Lake Snowmobile Club, Right to Life, the Hancock County Chapter of the American Red Cross, and three local banks.

Two Ellsworth radio stations, WDEA-AM and WKSQ-FM, will broadcast from Main Street during the parade, Fortier said. She anticipates that like last year, when the parade had 55 units, a few thousand people will turn out to watch.

The parade has no snow date. “The (Ellsworth) highway department has always promised us that Santa Claus will get through,” Fortier said. “With a promise like that, we’ll go ahead with the parade, no matter what. The parade will go as planned on Dec. 7.”

She said that the Ellsworth Downtown Merchants Association still sought units to march in the parade. Organizations interested in participating in the parade should contact Beal at 667-8458 (evenings) or Fortier at 667-4664.

Motorists planning to travel through Ellsworth during late morning on Dec. 7 should reconsider their travel schedules and routes, since the parade will disrupt traffic on High and Main Streets.

The 10th Annual Christmas Parade should be finished by 1 p.m., by which time all streets blocked off along the parade route should be reopened to through traffic.

Throughout the holiday season, Ellsworth merchants will offer many sales to attract customers to the hub of Hancock County. From specialty stores in downtown Ellsworth to the malls along High Street, shoppers will find various retail outlets to suit their tastes.

The articles appearing in this special section were written by Brian Swartz, NEWS advertising staff editor.