“Socially distanced” Tree Lighting (2020)

Photo of Tree by Locktender's house, with while lights draped from branches.
Christmas In Kingston

The KHS annual Holiday Open House and tree-lighting had long been a well loved Kingston Community tradition. Unfortunately, due to the Covid -19 pandemic we were unable to have our traditional Holiday Open House, but we were able to have a “socially distanced” community holiday tree lighting; furthermore, thanks to the generosity of Karin Linder, who provided new lights for the tree and the McParland family, who provided the essential lift to install them on the 65 foot tall tree (which had outgrown its old lights several years ago) the tree was properly and beautifully lighted. To celebrate and give thanks to the generosity of Karen and the McParland family a “socially distanced” tree lighting was held outside the Locktender’s House on the first Sunday in December.

New lights for the tree and, even more, installing them, had long been a challenge – the tree is 65 ft tall – just 10 ft short of that at Rockefeller Center. In addition to the McParlands, Doug Miller, George Luck, Jr, and Tom Jacoby assisted in preparing the lights.


Here are some photos from the 2019 KHS Annual Holiday Open House and Tree Lighting.

KHS Holiday Open House and Tree Lighting ~ December 1st, 2019

XMAS at Locktender’s House

KHS members, fellow Kingston resident, and many others attended our annual Holiday Open House and Tree Lighting December 1st, 2019 at the Locktender’s House on the D&R Canal. They enjoyed holiday refreshments, decorations by the Kingston Garden Club, the annual tree lighting, and music by the Kingston Womens Chorus.

D&R Canal Videos with commentary

Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

Two videos about canals were featured at the Kingston Historical Society meeting at the Kingston Firehouse on Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

After some background on the D&R Canal and its past and present importance to Kingston, KHS president Robert von Zumbusch led us through two videos: one, “D&R,” produced and directed by Cliff Crawford in 1976 — before the Canal Park was established; the video included historical footage and interviews with ‘canalers.’ Here is a link for the video on YouTube.

The other, “The Canals of New Jersey,” produced by the Canal Society of New Jersey, provided a comparison with New Jersey’s other navigational canal, the unique Morris Canal, which was very different from the D&R.

(Click photos to view full size)

For more on New Jersey’s canals, we recommend the Canal Society of New Jersey (link)

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