Return of Light Up the Season Dec. 3—and an invitation to participate

Light Up the Season, the annual downtown Hayward winter-time celebration and lighting ceremony, is returning to the City Hall rotunda and plaza the afternoon and evening of Saturday, Dec. 3, and local organizations, businesses, associations and school groups are welcome to participate.

After two-years of virtual and scaled-back Light Up the Season programs due to COVID-19, the City of Hayward is reintroducing the event with the goal of creating a time and place for Hayward residents to come together in a spirit of inclusion, and to share and celebrate winter-time traditions of our diverse communities. How do you celebrate Twin Luminaries, Mawlid al-Nabi, Chalica, Bodhi Day, Las Posadas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Lohri, Pongal, or other occasions that have the common theme of remembering that there is light even during the season of long nights?

With the 2022 edition of Light Up the Season, the City seeks to partner with community organizations, local businesses and associations, and school groups to recognize and to honor the sense of pride, togetherness and belonging shared by Hayward residents and interrupted by the pandemic. We invite you to present music and dance from these various winter traditions and to decorate homes and businesses in ways that recognize and embrace our commonalities as well as our wealth of cultures and traditions.

During the event, the City will continue its tradition of holding a lighting of a tree and other decorations just after sundown at approximately 5 p.m., as well as displays of fire engines and other apparatus, police officer- and firefighter-led seasonal toy and donation drives, an appearance by Curbie, the Hayward Public Library bookmobile, and other offerings.

Local organizations, businesses, associations, school and other groups interested in participating through performances, the sharing of winter-time traditions and other cultural practices, and in other ways are encouraged to contact Community Programs Specialist Zach Ebadi, of the Hayward City Manager’s Office, at (510) 583-3911 or by email at zach.ebadi@hayward-ca.gov.