City carolers joined Mayor Thomas Menino, Red Sox mascot Wally the Green Monster and Santa Claus on the Boston Common yesterday to watch the city’s 66th annual tree lighting and be serenaded by Grammy-winner Jose Feliciano when he performed “Feliz Navidad.”
The event featured a variety of cultural and seasonal activities, including Nova Scotian fiddlers, bagpipers and Gaelic dancers. Fireworks erupted after the lighting and hundreds sang along to a finale of Christmas and holiday songs.
Nova Scotia has sponsored the event for the past 36 years and supplies the tree, an offering of thanks for Boston’s emergency aid to a sinking Canadian ship in 1917.
For the last six years, Nova Scotia has sent a representative to the lighting. Canadian Consul General Neil LeBlanc was presented with a Red Sox baseball hat and said to the cheering crowd, “I love the hat, I love the game, and I especially love you!”
New York native and Suffolk University junior David Clancy said that though the lighting was “just a free family activity that people can go to,” the event was a novelty.
“We don’t have anything like this in New York,” he said. “If you want to do something fun in New York it’s going to cost you.”
Amina Michel-Ord said she hadn’t attended the annual lighting in years but came to share it with her seven-year-old son James.
“I wanted him to see it,” she said, “I’m surprised by how many grown-ups there are and so few children.”
Donna Melanson and her daughter Tricia, from Roslindale, said they hadn’t seen the tree lighting in years.
“I used to come with my mom when I was little,” Tricia Melanson said.
Yannie Bai, from Rhode Island, visited the tree lighting for the first time with her husband and son and said “[Children] are the most important thing [at the lighting].”