Holiday Tree Lighting

At five minutes past six on a December Friday evening, Santa Claus and Mayor Jef Dalin light the Holiday Tree in Veterans Memorial Park, on Baseline Street between 12th and 13th in Cornelius. The 2025 lighting, on December 5, was the city’s 13th. The crowd gathers from 6 p.m., and free hot chocolate, sponsored by Dutch Bros, is poured at the tree. The City of Cornelius puts the event on and announces it in English and Spanish.

Champurrado at the new elementary school

Once the tree is lit, Santa and the mayor lead the crowd on foot to the new Cornelius Elementary School. There, in 2025, the Forest Grove High School Choir and the Neil Armstrong Middle School Choir sang, and the Neil Armstrong Middle School Orchestra played. Walmart sponsored free champurrado and cookies. Children could have their pictures taken with Santa, and the school held a book fair and holiday crafts. The city’s calendar gave the evening as 6 to 8 p.m.

A redwood in the rain

Thirteen years earlier, in November 2012, City Manager Rob Drake suggested a tree lighting to the city council, and officials agreed to host the first annual ceremony. The Forest Grove News-Times announced it on November 20 for Saturday, December 1, at 7 p.m. The program called for two youth choirs, hot chocolate from the Cornelius Boosters Club, and candy canes for children. Santa and Mrs. Claus were to arrive in a Cornelius Fire Department truck before Santa and Dalin lit the tree at 7:45. The tree was a redwood standing in the park.

The Oregonian, writing a year later, dated that first lighting November 30, 2012. By its account the rain pelted sideways, the wind blew, and 300 people came out regardless.

A Douglas fir from Steamboat Park

The second annual lighting was set for Friday, December 6, 2013, at 6:30 p.m., with a high projected in the low 30s. Drake’s advice was to button up and come for the show and the hot chocolate. Construction on Baseline Street had made the park location too difficult. For that year only, the lighting moved to the green beside Cornelius City Hall, at the corner of 14th Avenue and Adair Street.

A 30-foot Douglas fir from Steamboat Park took the 2013 position. Ike Isakson, general manager of Truss Components, said the tree was ready to go when a company semitruck arrived to haul it on a trailer. It went into a hole dug and lined by Forest Grove Light & Power. The groups volunteered their help, and Isakson estimated Truss Components could have charged $200 or so for the work. Ross Andersen, with the city, wrapped the lights around it.

“The reality is, it saved the city money, and knowing that we did have the help with it -- the generosity really does go along with the holiday season,” Drake told The Oregonian.

By the third lighting, on Friday, December 5, 2014, the ceremony was back at Veterans Memorial Park at 6 p.m. Children from local schools and churches sang carols in Spanish, and Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived on a Cornelius Fire Department truck. The tree was lit at about 6:15. Afterward the crowd went one block to the City Council Chambers at 1310 N. Adair St., warm and heated, for more holiday songs and for hot chocolate and cookies from the Boosters Club.