Camden — Again this year Camden’s lampposts are dressed for the holidays, an annual gift to the community from the Camden Garden Club.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, members take delivery of the 99 24-inch wreaths of mixed fir and spruce, ordered every year from New England Traditions Evergreen Nursery in Waldoboro.

Club members make the 99 all-new fluffy red velvet bows a couple weeks before and order new strings of lights. Then on that Monday, along with a complement of husbands, they wire lights and bows in place and haul the finished wreaths outside. The wreaths are loaded into a truck and hung by the Camden road crew, two wreaths per post, so they shine from either direction. The finishing touch is draping the railing on the bridge with garland and more bows.

Decorating the town for the season is a long tradition with the garden club. In 1950, baskets on the posts were filled with evergreen boughs and red berries, then in later years by small decorated trees. In 1971 the switch was made to natural wreaths decorated with colored lights. Now the lights are white.

The Camden Garden Club, founded in 1915, is a member of the Garden Club Federation of Maine, and is known throughout New England for its annual House and Garden Tour in July, now in its 66th year. The tour pays for the holiday wreaths, as well as the summer baskets of hanging red geraniums, and flower beds and boxes all over.

Information about upcoming winter programs is posted at camdengardenclub.com. The public is always welcome, as are applications for membership.

Lisa Zahn placing the last wreath.

Passing the wreaths out to the parking lot, from left, Joe Wicklow, Barbara Furey, Kath Holland, and Gaby Wicklow.

Mary Bevan, this year’s chairman for wreaths, surveying the 99 wreaths, completed and ready to go.