Crowds turn out for festivities, fun at ‘Winterfest and Doy’s Holiday Tree Lighting’

Trees are nice and cocoa is sweet, but to 4-year-old Cooper Haradon, Chapman University’s first “Winterfest and Doy’s Holiday Tree Lighting” was all about the train.

“I like when it went vroom, vroom,” said Cooper, as the holiday train chugging around Attallah Piazza came to a stop.

Cooper, son of Tianna Haradon ’01, was  just one of hundreds of celebrants who poured onto campus Thursday for Chapman University’s “Winterfest and Doy’s Holiday Tree Lighting.” The inaugural event filled the piazza with holiday gift booths, free cocoa and cider, displays hosted by student groups from the Fish Interfaith Center, live music, a sky full of falling “snow” and that holiday train. Theatre professor Michael Nehring entertained the crowd with a reading of the classic poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” and Trustee Doy Henley arrived as Santa and flipped the switch for the official lighting of the blue spruce on the south side of the piazza.

It was a nice dose of holiday cheer before the crush of finals week, said Brandon Tracey ’14.

“I’m actually on a study break and then I’m going back to it,” said Tracey.

Thursday’s festivities also served as launch of a new campus tradition. President Jim Doti announced that the blue spruce that was the focus of Thursday’s event will be decorated throughout the year for all major holidays. Good news, eh, Cooper?