When you wish upon a wall…

The West Hartford Holiday Stroll is a free, family-friendly annual event that helps kick off the holiday season.

The West Hartford Holiday Stroll is a free, family-friendly annual event that helps kick off the holiday season. The evening draws 5,000 – 8,000 people and offers a chance to meet Santa and the elves, see the Holiday tree lighting, sample lots of tasty treats, check out the window decorating, take in a performance on one of two stages, peek inside West Hartford’s fire trucks or enjoy our strolling Victorian carolers. The real fun, however, is located at 290 Farmington Avenue.

Come join us! We are the lively bunch parked under the marquis for the Central. We hang snowflakes from the ceiling, and we set up four giant chalkboards. Some of us dress up (you’ve got to see Steven in his Abraham Lincoln finest) and then we get silly and beg passers-by to write a wish on the wall. For every wish collected we donate a dollar to the West Hartford food pantry. We hand out candy canes with terrible (seriously terrible) jokes written on them, we sing songs, we visit with our neighbors and with each other. We take turns warming up in our office/workshop upstairs (if you ask nicely we’ll sneak you up there), and at the end of the evening we’ve made some friends, supported a local nonprofit, and maybe gotten into the spirit of the holiday just a little bit. 

This year the fun is happening around 5pm on November 30th and you’re invited. We wish that you’ll stop by— maybe we’ll even write that on the wall!