Cambridge Builds Crab Basket Christmas Tree

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(CAMBRIDGE, Md) – As the sun begins to rise on downtown Cambridge for the holiday season, volunteers have been hard at work Friday morning. As they are stacking up wooden crab baskets to make something unique to Cambridge, in the Crab Basket Christmas Tree.

The idea came about from Assistant City Manager, Brandon Hesson over a decade ago.

Brandon was up at the crack of dawn getting the more than 200 crab baskets ready. And having them in good shape was not easy.

Brandon tells WMDT, “Nowadays, I think these baskets are starting to give way to, to, larger square baskets, plastic, a lot of different materials. And so actually, these are, these vessels were super hard to get ahold of.”

The Crab Basket Christmas tree is a staple of Downtown Cambridge for the holiday season.

It’s also a popular landmark for helping attract people towards the city’s small businesses.

“They’re here every Black Friday. Putting this up to really be kind of a beacon during the holidays…and it just means so much to the businesses and the community to see this go up every year. And sort of just symbolize the holiday season and the hustle and bustle we hope to have downtown,” says Cambridge Main Street Executive Director, Christina Wingate-Spence.

In the community where the motto is “water moves us” a Christmas Tree being made out of crab baskets is an homage to the watermen on the Chesapeake.

“They’re super unique to the area, super unique to the shore. They’re very specific to Cambridge. And I think they’re they’re a thing that we see everywhere around here. We take for granted that we don’t think that they actually, are really that pretty. I think what we do is we put them together in a way that is like, attractive…” says Brandon.

According to Brandon, there’s over 220 wooden baskets that are going in to building this year’s tree.