VAN BUREN, Maine — The creator of the world’s largest gingerbread village made a special appearance in northern Maine this weekend for Van Buren’s annual Christmas in July festival.
Jon Lovitch, the holder of several consecutive Guinness World Records for the world’s largest gingerbread village, worked with guests young and old to create their very own gingerbread villages on Saturday. The festival also featured several hours of live music, food trucks offering everything from ice cream, coffee, popcorn, and walking tacos, and even a dunking booth.
Lovitch, who still holds the Guinness World record, now builds gingerbread exhibits full-time and travels with them across the country. Van Buren is unusually small compared to his other stops, which include New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.
And while Van Buren, a northern Maine border community of around 2,000,has little in common with those cities, Lovitch said he loved the town and looks forward to coming back. It all started when someone across the border in Canada saw a special on HGTV featuring Lovitch. They contacted him. He contacted Van Buren, and they were thrilled to have him, he said.
Though Lovitch is based in New York City, where he worked as a chef for more than a decade, he and his wife often travel to New England. And even though he’s from a big city, he grew up in a Missouri town smaller than Van Buren.
“This is very similar territory,” he said. “Actually I think Van Buren’s significantly bigger. My wife and I love this region a lot, so it’s a great deal to come and do an event like this.”
Just last week, he did summer festivals in Kansas City and Houston, Texas all in one day. Van Buren is his third stop of the summer. He is then going to Seneca Falls, New York and may fit in one more before August, which is when he starts preparing the major gingerbread villages.
This is the fourth year that the town has held its “Christmas in July” festival. The Van Buren Revitalization Association is behind the event, and tries to make it bigger every year.
Even though the event officially began at 2 p.m., the town’s boat landing was already packed with hundreds before then. Organizers anticipated over a thousand would have attended by the end of the day.
Some other additions this year include a waterslide, a baked potato bar, and other family activities.
“Every year it gets bigger and bigger with more people,” organizer Leslie Beaulieu said.
Several musical guests also played on Saturday, including The Nadeau Brothers, karaoke with Chris Maldonado, and French Toast. Festivities officially kicked off on Friday, July 24 with the Austin West memorial scholarship Glow Run, and it will officially wrap up on Sunday morning with an 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. breakfast at the town’s Acadian Village.
One of the more popular events at the festival is the dunking booth, which lets guests toss a ball and submerge an unlucky participant in a clear tub of water. This year’s booth featured two bus drivers.
Stephanie Bresett with the Van Buren Revitalization Association said that Christmas in July has had the booth for three years.
“It’s a pretty popular event based on who is sitting on the seat,” she said.
Looking ahead, Lovitch said he would love to come back to Van Buren for future festivals, and that the community in the summer feels pastoral and out of time.
“I saw kids outside with baseball gloves and bicycles, and I saw a kid with a fishing rod and a bucket, and I was like ‘What year is this?’ The best way I would describe it is that it feels like you’re in a [Norman] Rockwell painting, and that’s a good thing,” he said.
The best part of the exhibit and participating in these festivals is to bring joy to people amid difficult times, he said.
“Regardless of what side of the political aisle you’re on, whatever you believe, there’s a ton of bad stuff going on,” he said. “So the fact that you can create something that makes people happy, even if it’s ephemeral, that’s a good feeling.”
