LYNNFIELD — With only six days left until Christmas, a group of Lynnfield elves, aided and abetted by Lynnfield resident Todd Angilly, is doing what they can to make the holidays a little more special this year.
On Sunday, Angilly, accompanied by Santa Claus and the Grinch, will lead a rolling holiday sing-along parade through the streets of Lynnfield, giving residents a chance to, in the words of Buddy the Elf, “sing loud for all to hear.” The parade will be headlined by Angilly, a corrections officer by day and bartender by night at SportsDeck at TD Garden. He is most well known to hockey lovers as the official national anthem singer for the Boston Bruins, taking over in October of 2019 for the legendary Rene Rancourt, who retired after the 2017-2018 season.
“It’s a simple and easy way to spread some holiday cheer during a difficult time and make people happy,” Angilly said.
Lauren Hurton and Rob Sharrio (aka the Lynnfield elves) helped organize the event after Angilly pitched the idea to them a couple of weeks ago.
“Todd reached out to a few of us and told us he wanted to do a parade with Christmas carols in Lynnfield,” said Hurton. “He had done a couple in other communities and they were really a lot of fun, so we reached out to the town and got permission. I guess you could say we are just the elves working behind the scenes to make sure we make Todd’s idea a reality and a success. I’m sure it will be a lot of fun and people are really excited about it.”
“Todd is such a good guy so we wanted to do everything we could to pull this together for him,” said Sharrio, adding that Angilly has already performed similar sing-along-parades in Lancaster and Medford. Earlier this year, Angilly also performed during a rolling parade in North Reading celebrating Memorial Day.
“We started in Medford with a simple grass-roots campaign where we just thought nobody has really done something like this,” Sharrio said. “I mean, nobody is trained in this, Todd just kept coming back with this idea to do the same thing in our hometown in Lynnfield.”
On his Boston Anthem Singer Facebook page, Angilly posted, “We hope to see you there this Sunday in Lynnfield! Come sing with me and DJ Tusi and spread some socially distanced and well-needed cheer!”
Sharrio and Angilly have a busy weekend ahead of them.
“Saturday we will be going house to house, all over the place, to the homes of Bruins season ticket holders who won raffles to have Todd sing at their homes,” Sharrio said.
The parade begins at the South Lynnfield Post Office Square parking lot at 12:30 p.m. and will end at the Lynnfield Middle School at about 4. Angilly will perform atop a flatbed truck, with Santa Claus and the Grinch following behind in an open-air convertible, if weather permits. Burton said the event will also include a DJ playing holiday tunes. The route will be continuous with occasional stops depending on crowd size. Residents are advised to wear face masks and observe social distancing at all times.
The parade route will snake its way through the Sherwood Forest neighborhood, then proceed along Summer Street to Trickett through Glen Meadow. After that, it’s back onto Summer Street to Essex Street and through King James’ Grant. The final leg of the route is on Lowell Street through the Apple Hill neighborhood to Chestnut Street, eventually reaching the end destination at the middle school.
“We tried to work in as many streets and neighborhoods as we could in the two-hour time frame, so hopefully almost everyone will be able to watch from their driveways or maybe just a short distance from home,” said Hurton. “Originally, I think the plan was to do something on the Town Common, but obviously with COVID, that wasn’t feasible. We think this is the next best alternative in terms of spreading some holiday spirit in as safe a way possible under the situation.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].