Amherst’s holiday tree has been lighting the center of town for generations. Keeping a tradition like that alive takes more than lights. It takes people willing to pick up the baton.
My family moved to Amherst in the fall of 1983, and some of my earliest memories of town are wrapped up in the holidays. I remember the enormous tree across from the Brick School, the fire truck helping string the lights, the smell of chestnuts roasting in a metal barrel and Santa arriving in a police car. I remember sneaking underneath the tree with other kids. The whole scene felt like something Norman Rockwell would have painted for a Saturday Evening Post cover.
What I don't remember is ever wondering who made it all happen. When you're a kid, traditions just happen. The tree gets lit. Santa shows up. You don't think much about the people behind any of it. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate that there is always a someone behind everything. Someone who cares enough to organize it, make the phone calls, find the equipment, raise the money, replace what broke last year and show up when there's work to be done.
The history of Amherst's holiday tree is a wonderful example. The tradition stretches back to the early 1960s and has passed through the hands of generations of Amherst residents and organizations. Richard Smith and a committee of residents helped get it started. Mrs. Hamilton Dunbar later took responsibility, followed by the Amherst Junior Women's Club and others. For decades, the Amherst Fire Department played an important role, including using its ladder truck to string the lights on the towering tree across from the Brick School.
I think of traditions like this as a relay race. Over the years, the baton gets passed from one person to another. Sometimes the handoff is smooth and carefully planned. Sometimes it's informal or even a little unceremonious. Occasionally the baton gets dropped altogether, and someone has to notice, pick it up and start running again. But somehow, for more than 60 years, people in Amherst have kept picking it up.
In 2021, another handoff took place when the Fire Department was no longer able to take responsibility for lighting the tree. A new group of volunteers, organized by Marti Warren, stepped forward to keep the tradition going. My dad, Tom, has been among those doing much of the hands-on work behind the lights. Neither would particularly want to be singled out, and that's actually part of the point. Amherst has always had people like them. Most aren't looking for recognition. They simply see something worth preserving and decide to help.
Helping Carry the Load
Of course, goodwill alone doesn't buy lights or rent a lift. Keeping the tree glowing each year costs real money, and planning for the future will require more. Beginning in 2022, the Amherst Community Foundation established the Holiday Tree Fund, giving people who value the tradition an easy way to support it with tax-deductible charitable gifts. ACF provides the financial infrastructure and stewardship, allowing the volunteers to focus on the actual work of keeping the tradition alive.
Over the first two years, 60 people have contributed just shy of $8,000 to the Holiday Tree Fund, and we're enormously grateful to every one of them. Their generosity has helped cover the costs associated with lighting the tree and has allowed the volunteers to begin thinking beyond just the next holiday season.
Today's tree won't last forever. It is already becoming too large for the role, so the volunteers are beginning to think seriously about what comes next. With help from the Amherst Garden Club, we've identified a promising spruce that may be able to be moved and planted on the Village Green as a future holiday tree. There are still plenty of details to work through, including how to move and establish a mature tree, but it's exciting to think that the next chapter of this tradition may already be taking shape.
There's something fitting about that idea. The people caring for today's tradition are already thinking about a tree that someone else may be lighting years from now. In its own way, that's another baton being passed.
This project also illustrates an important part of how ACF tries to work in Amherst. We don't need to own every project or have all the answers ourselves. Sometimes our most useful role is providing the structure that allows other people and organizations to do what they do best. In this case, volunteers bring their time and energy, the Amherst Garden Club brings its knowledge and expertise, donors provide the financial support, and ACF provides a trusted place to bring those pieces together.
As we head into another holiday season, we're asking the community to help us keep that going. If you've already contributed to the Holiday Tree Fund, thank you. You are part of a tradition that reaches back more than 60 years. And if that tree, those lights, or a cold December night in the center of Amherst are part of your family's memories too, we hope you'll consider helping with the next leg of the relay.
Because traditions don't just happen. Someone always carries the baton.
September 2026 Update
We’re happy to share that the next chapter of this story is already taking root.
In 2025, an Amherst resident generously donated a beautiful spruce that was professionally moved and planted on the Village Green, where we hope it will become Amherst’s next holiday tree. The Amherst Garden Club and the Holiday Tree Fund each contributed half the cost of having the tree professionally moved and planted, with funds raised through ACF covering the Holiday Tree Fund’s share.
Since then, the Town of Amherst has helped care for the new tree and kept it watered, and a year later it is healthy and thriving. It will likely be another two years before the spruce is ready to carry holiday lights, but we’re thrilled to know that the next tree is already growing in the center of the Green.
It feels like a fitting continuation of a tradition that has depended on Amherst residents, volunteers, community organizations and the Town working together for generations.