News Photo by Julie Riddle A child shares Christmas wishes with Santa Claus during his visit to Westminster Park in Rogers City on Wednesday.

ROGERS CITY — With a twinkle in his eye and a grand gesture, Santa Claus on Wednesday ushered in the Christmas season by adding a touch of magic to a small-town tradition.

As it has done for decades, Rogers City welcomed the holidays with a whoosh of a sleigh, a parkful of brightly-lit trees, and the grins of children thrilled at the sight of Mr. Christmas himself in their very own home town.

Come the end of November each year, Christmas trees — sold by the Rogers City Optimist Club as a fundraiser for their ongoing charitable work — fan out like spokes from a gazebo that graces the center of Westminster Park in Rogers City.

Nimble hands of local high school volunteers — this year in single-digit windchills — blanket the trees with lights, but only Santa can provide the special something that makes those lights shine.

On Wednesday, in darkness, bundled adults and children with glow sticks milled past the unlit trees and clutched hot cocoa provided by a local church, all on the lookout for Santa’s arrival.

Joe Brewbaker, Presque Isle County sheriff and emcee for the big event, held a microphone at the top of the gazebo steps, stirring the eager children to even greater excitement with periodic reports of Santa sightings nearby.

Finally, a flicker of red and blue on a nearby street announced their wait was almost over.

“Only in Rogers City does Santa get a police escort to see all you kids,” Brewbaker exclaimed as a sleigh draped in strings of light glided closer to the park, a police car leading the way.

At last, Santa arrived and dismounted from his sleigh, mounting the gazebo steps like royalty and stopping for a photo surrounded by the smiling faces of the town’s queens and princesses, who beamed as they posed with the guest of honor.

The crowd counted down from 10. Grasping with white-gloved hands the magic candy canes he uses each year on his visits to Rogers City, Santa raised his arms and, in a magnificent gesture, crossed them with a click and set the park aglow.

Adults smiled and children bounced as the park lit up, trees and humans shining with the holiday and the togetherness and the tradition that keeps them coming back, year after year, not for something new and exciting but for a little bit of Christmas magic.

Some families wandered among trees marked in memory of loved ones long gone, while others bunched at the foot of the gazebo, where, one by one, children propped on a red knee whispered confidences into Santa’s ear.

Audrey Kranzo, a downstater visiting relatives in Rogers City, remembers bringing her children to the tree lighting when they were little.

The trees, and the hometown feel of the tradition, make the event “kind of magical,” Kranzo said as she and her daughters stood in line to visit Santa.

“Everybody knows each other here,” said daughter Kayla, 11, calling the small town and its traditions “cute.”

As voices swirled around her, Pearl Tulgetske, of Rogers City, said the tree lighting brings the town together and gives them a chance to celebrate as one.

“It’s the lights, it’s the music,” Tulgetske said. “It’s a wonderful event.”

The families jostling and talking and laughing in the darkness warmed the heart after too much time of separation over the past few years, said Rob Denomme, of Rogers City.

“It’s lighting everything up,” Demonne said. “It’s getting out of the darkness. It’s getting everybody together.”