The Buoy Tree

It started in 2020.

The first Buoy Tree went up the winter the village stayed open through the hardest months any of us could remember. It was a small thank-you — a few dozen painted buoys strung together where the village's Holiday tree usually stood.

By the next year, neighbors started showing up with their own. Painted buoys from boats, from cellars, from grandparents' garages. Five years on, the tree holds hundreds, and the lighting on the Friday after Thanksgiving has become the unofficial start of winter in Padanaram.

Editor's note: replace with the real origin story when ready.