LINCOLNVILLE BEACH— Hot chocolate, a huge stack of discarded pallets and sunset at Lincolnville Beach: that and a big community turnout is all you need for a good old-fashioned winter beach bonfire.

Andy Young in his Santa hat, worked with a number of local building suppliers, boat repair shops, tree service companies and volunteers to stack up the the giant pile, beginning at 12 p.m. Saturday, December 2. “We had donations and help from Back Cove Yachts, Rankin’s Hardware & Building Supplies, Viking Lumber, EBS, Bragg’s Tree Care, and Goodridge-Lerman Tree service,” he said. “And the guys from Bald Rock Builders were a huge part of the building team.”

Lincolnville Family Dentistry set up a table with complimentary hot chocolate, candy canes, and of course, toothpaste.

At 3 p.m. Young and a friend torched up the base of the bonfire with a propane tank and within about five minutes, the smoke was billowing and the heat could be felt from the parking lot.

“Do you know the real reason we do this every year?” Young asked. “What most people don’t realize is three weeks before Christmas, Santa does a test run with a sleigh and puts each of the reindeer through a workout. Every year, he’s flying around Labrador, Newfoundland, and as far as Nova Scotia. Used to be he never came this far down the coast. But, we started building our bonfires, he noticed and started coming down. The problem is, the first year we did this, the reindeer didn’t like the sand on the beach. Now, they land up the road at Mike’s Alignment and a fire truck goes up to meet Santa and bring them all down. So, you see, our bonfires have to keep getting bigger and bigger each year so that Santa knows how to find us.”

As the fire burned on, caroling commenced at 4 p.m. with a brief lighting of the Christmas tree followed by Santa Claus, who apparently, had no trouble finding the beach.

Drone footage courtesy Terry Boivan

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com