In August 2025, Dan Sprague was driving by and noticed a big spruce on the Martin family's property in Brewer. The family had been trying for five years to give that tree to the city. According to WABI, Mary Martin said they "just couldn't get the right people lined up with the city," because "they had a list already generated and we were kind of down on the bottom." Three months after Sprague drove by, that spruce was standing about 40 feet tall in West Market Square.
Bangor's downtown holiday tree comes off private land around Greater Bangor, usually from one owner who agrees to let go of a tree that has grown on the property for decades. Each year's tree is lined up months before it is cut.
A tree picked a year ahead
Sprague has sourced and donated Bangor's tree for about 30 years. When the Bangor Daily News asked how long he'd been doing it, he said, "I've lost count." He's connected to Sprague's Nursery & Garden Center at 1664 Union Street, a family-owned business that has served the Bangor area since 1947. He told WABI in 2023 that he had been retired for four years and called the tree "just something I do every fall."
His method is simple and takes a lot of driving. "I ride around all summer and I stop and talk to people that have trees on their front lawns," he told the Bangor Daily News at the 2025 installation. In the same conversation he said he already had next year's tree picked out. That means the tree going up downtown this November was chosen about a year ago, and it is still growing wherever it stands now.
He looks for more than looks. In a 2022 Bangor Daily News story, Sprague said he wants a tree that can be reached from the road and is clear of electrical wires. He generally prefers balsam firs or Norway spruces to blue spruce. The 2025 tree was a blue spruce, which shows that a willing donor and the right tree at the right moment can count for more than species.
"Finding the tree is the hardest part, finding someone that has to let go of their Christmas tree." Dan Sprague, speaking to WABI in 2023
Where recent trees came from
Each year's tree has a home address, and most of those addresses are outside downtown Bangor:
- 2015: a 32-foot balsam fir from land in Hermon, which Sprague bought, cut and delivered himself
- 2021: a 35-foot tree from Hodgdon Road in Levant
- 2022: a Norway spruce from Solstice Senior Living that Sprague had planted there more than 30 years earlier; the Bangor Daily News put it at 42 feet
- 2023: a 39-foot balsam fir harvested in Bangor itself
- 2024: a 36-foot Norway spruce strung with more than 8,000 lights
- 2025: a roughly 40-foot blue spruce from the Martin family in Brewer
The 2022 tree came back to Sprague after three decades. He had planted it as a nurseryman, and it returned to him as the city's centerpiece. The 2025 tree had a family history too. Mary Martin donated it in honor of her mother, Pam Martin, who, as Mary told WABI, "did Christmas all out" and decorated her whole front yard every year. The Martins planted the tree when their kids were babies. Mary said it was "kind of nice the grandkids see that tree downtown."
The city can't lift it alone
Cutting a 40-foot tree and standing it upright in a downtown square takes heavy equipment. In 2024 the Bangor Daily News reported that the city doesn't have a truck that can handle the tree's weight. Once the tree is up, Public Works crews stabilize it in its base with sand, dirt, wood and cement blocks, according to WABI.
The heavy lifting is done by family. Sprague's nephew owns Hartt's Electric in Levant and donates his time and equipment each year to raise the tree so Public Works can secure it. "My nephew runs the boom truck, takes it down for me and puts it back up for the city," Sprague told WABI in 2024. Frasier Signal Technologies of Veazie helped string the lights and place the star, and the city says the lighting job alone takes three bucket trucks. The nephew, identified by WABI in 2023 as Hartt's Electric owner David McElvain, explained how he got involved. "My uncle Dan just corners me every year to get me started in this, so it just became a tradition, just community service," he said. His crew has cut the tree with Sprague for years and has been standing it up for the city for about the last 12. Before that, in 2015, a crane from Emera Maine lifted the tree into place.
Put together, the city's tree depends on a retired nurseryman with a good eye, his nephew's boom truck, a few local trade businesses, and a homeowner who agrees to give up the biggest tree in the yard.
The light show
Once it's up, the tree does more than glow. Since 2024 it has run a daily light-and-music show, sponsored by Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway and programmed by Scott Stitham, technical director for the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine in Orono. In that first season, the Bangor Daily News reported a 12-minute sequence followed by a 30-minute break, repeating from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. In 2025, News Center Maine described the show as running each hour after the first lighting. The schedule has changed from one year to the next, so check the Downtown Bangor Partnership for this season's timing before you plan a stop around it.
The speakers are hidden inside the tree. At last year's lighting, "Jingle Bells" started playing from them around 4:30 p.m. as light flurries fell, and about 200 people were in the square, according to the Bangor Daily News.
The schedule around this year's tree
In recent years the tree has gone up downtown about a week before Thanksgiving or during Thanksgiving week. In 2024 it arrived on Tuesday, Nov. 19, and in 2025 on Thursday, Nov. 20. This year's tree and its donor haven't been named publicly yet. Going by that pattern, it should arrive in West Market Square around the third week of November. Here's the calendar it anchors:
- Friday, Nov. 27: Tree lighting and Plaid Friday. The Downtown Bangor event runs 4 to 5 p.m. at West Market Square, 1 Broad Street, and the tree lights at 4:30 p.m. Plaid Friday runs all day across downtown. It started as the local, more relaxed answer to Black Friday, and each business sets its own deals. Some discounts in past years applied only to shoppers wearing plaid.
- Friday, Nov. 27, 7 p.m.: The Grinch opens. Penobscot Theatre Company opens Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas the Musical the same night at 131 Main Street. Opening weekend has more shows on Nov. 28 at 5 p.m. and Nov. 29 at 3 p.m., and the run goes through Dec. 27.
- Saturday, Nov. 28: Small Business Saturday. Downtown Bangor lists it as an all-day event at downtown venues.
- Saturday, Dec. 5, 4:30 p.m.: Festival of Lights Parade. The Rotary Club of Bangor is hosting its nighttime parade again, with room for up to 80 units, including marching bands, floats and dance groups, and Santa arriving at the end. If the weather isn't safe, it moves to Dec. 6 with the same times and lineup. After the parade, the tree-lighting festivities happen a second time in West Market Square.
The two Saturdays bracket the stretch when downtown matters most to small shops. Miriam Davidson, co-owner of Log Jam Vintage on Harlow Street, told the Bangor Daily News that last year's Plaid Friday was "really busy off the bat." She said she hoped the foot traffic was the start of a good season for Bangor's small businesses.
Where next year's tree is standing now
Sprague's routine is to scout in summer for the tree a year out. He looks for a spruce or fir in the 35-to-42-foot range, close enough to the road to harvest safely, clear of power lines, and owned by someone ready to let it go. The Martins' story shows how much depends on timing. Their tree was on a list for five years before one August drive-by moved it to the top.
James is an engineer by training, so he has spent plenty of time assessing mature trees on a property: their size, their condition, and how close they sit to the lines and the roof. If you're wondering what the big spruce in your own yard means for your property, James Spear at True North Realty can walk the lot with you and give you a practical read. Stop Dreaming. Start Doing — Schedule a Consultation.
