Waking up Woody The Talking Christmas Tree in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Published December 4th, 2024
Photography by Jennifer Bain unless otherwise noted
“Wake up Woody,” the children pleaded, politely at first and then shouting with mounting frustration. But the three-storey talking Christmas tree in a Dartmouth mall stubbornly refused to open his bulging eyes or move his pouty Kardashian-esque lips.
“He’s been around the world,” apologized two woodland elves. “If he feels like sleeping in, he will.” They eventually sent the disappointed Saturday crowd off for some retail therapy until a doctor could be summoned to wake up Woody with a vitamin shot.
It was a perfectly imperfect introduction to Nova Scotia’s most freakish Christmas tradition.
You might have heard about doll-faced Woody a few years back when CNN dubbed him “the wizard of odd” and “Tammy Faye reincarnated.” Or maybe you caught Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show when he quipped: “Well, now we know what the Christmas episode of Squid Game will look like” (a nod to the Netflix survival thriller horror). The Beaverton joined the viral fun saying the creepy tree promised to consume no more than four children during the 2021 holiday shopping season. The social media crowd responded by making Cinnabon offerings to Woody.
In search of quirky Canadian Christmas traditions, I flew to Nova Scotia this month for the Evergreen Festival in Halifax and to meet Woody across the harbour in Dartmouth.
Sadly, the details of the festive fir’s origin story are murky. What is certain is that the Mic Mac Mall opened in 1973 and Woody debuted in 1983 when the third floor was complete. Nobody remembers who made him, how or why, or what his first words were.
Woody 1.0 was weirdly menacing with a grinning Thomas the Tank Engine-esque face, rosy cheeks, unsettling eyes and killer clown eyelashes. He instantly became the stuff of holiday season legend. Kids and adults made pilgrimages to talk to the charismatic tree, some aware that local deejays and celebrities hid in a nearby wooden shed to serve as Woody’s voice, others oblivious to the secret microphones and speakers.
Woody’s face was controlled by a lever system, but his paint slowly flaked and crumbled and he was deliciously awkward. Woody was reimagined as Woody 2.0 in the early 1990s with slightly better technology and a facelift. But after Christmas of either 2006 or 2007 (depending who you ask), he was put on indefinite hiatus due to structural challenges.
It wasn’t until November 2021 that Woody resurfaced thanks to new mall ownership led by the Rama family who “understood job one was to bring back Woody.” It took three months to get Woody 3.0 ready. His new face was 3D printed by Halifax company, EurekaTec Technologies, and he was outfitted with electronic face controls. He’s more than 50 feet — some say 56 — tall and now prone to technical difficulties.
“We refer to Woody as a `He/him’ however, it is a tree and is neither masculine nor feminine,” the mall’s Lisa Flux and Tia Hathaway confided in a news release. “Woody’s overarching messaging is one of home-grown Maritime pride, to be to be kind to animals, preserve nature, and (help) one another.”
In case your friends ask like mine did, some people refuse to say Mic Mac Mall because the outdated name mangles Mi'kmaq, the Indigenous people of Mi'kma'ki, which spans the Atlantic provinces and beyond. They follow the lead of Halifax retail expert Arthur Gaudreau who calls it “the Big Dartmouth Mall” on Halifax ReTales — and it is indeed the largest enclosed shopping centre in the Maritimes. The address is Micmac Boulevard and it’s part of residential/retail redevelopment wisely slated to be called M District.
Anyway, Woody returned on Nov. 23, now with an unofficial Bluesky account, wearing last year’s black top hat (because his new one got stuck in the postal strike) and surrounded by a Sable Island horse and other local animals. He’ll be around until Dec. 23 and gets woken up daily at noon. Everyone walks away with free Woody-shaped seed paper ornaments that say “have a tree-mendous day” and can be planted to grow wildflowers.
Fans also get a copy of the “Wake Up Woody Song” that’s meant to be recited like a poem. “It’s time to sing and shout with glee. Wake up Woody, wake up please! I’ll talk to you; You’ll talk to me. Woody, you’re our chosen tree! All your friends have come to say. It’s time to rise and shine today!”
On the Saturday that we failed to wake up Woody, I watched a grown man fleeing in mock terror, saying: “I already feel him sucking my soul away.”
Then I consoled myself at the second annual pop-up Woody Store buying an ugly sweater, toque, ornaments and “bye birches” t-shirt. Proceeds go to a pediatric hospital/trauma centre via the IWK Foundation.
On a tour that night at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site, Parks Canada’s Hal Thompson called Woody “the big creepy tree.” But that didn’t deter me from being first in line to meet him the next day, a spot I was charmed into giving up to four-year-old Reid Williams.
Woody refused to wake up until we sang his song twice, and even then he didn’t blink or move his lips. “Oh my goodness, there's so many people that came to see me — even on a Sunday,” he chortled before forcing us to sing “O Christmas Tree.”
He bantered with Williams, discovering that the boy likes Christmas cookies and Christmas movies, admiring his festive shirt, encouraging his mom to take photos and then ushering him off with a sassy “tree ya later, Reid.”
Woody’s no Santa, so he doesn’t ask about wish lists. When my turn finally came — and after feeding key details about myself to an elf who typed them into a computer and sent them to Woody — I admitted being a travel writer from Toronto.
“Oh my goodness that’s amazing. Did you come by sleigh? Did it fly through the air? One of the magical sleighs? Where did it land? Did you clear space on the rooftop here?” Woody grilled me before asking “Met any great trees like me lately?” No, but I had just met Santa at the Citadel.
“Are you serious? Wow,” Woody shot back. “Usually he doesn’t grant interviews this late in the season, so that’s pretty good. You must have a lot of clout.”
Then it was time to “say trees” and take photos. The big and delightfully creepy tree sent me off as he sang “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, forever thy name is … Woo-deeee!”
While You’re in Halifax:
Do: The Evergreen Festival, an outdoor celebration centred on the Halifax waterfront, runs until Dec. 15. Look for Spruce the Gonk, the festival’s gnome mascot with a great name. The Evergreen Market has 22 local vendors. There’s live music and a winter sports zone, plus Spruce’s Evergreen Cocoa Trail. Evergreen Bright is a trail of holiday lights along the Halifax waterfront, across downtown Halifax/Dartmouth and beyond. At the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site, the Halifax Citadel Society offers Citadel by Candlelight and Raise Your Holiday Spirits tours until mid-December.
Stay: I stayed at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel, where the “Merry and Bright Holiday Escape” package comes with self-parking, a $25/night food and beverage credit, and a s’mores-making kit. I roasted those marshmallows on the hotel’s festive Merry & Bright Patio. The Evergreen Express (a free mini express train) goes between the Marriott and Cunard Residences.
Eat: You can buy my favourite Canadian cheese (Dragon’s Breath Blue by That Dutchman’s Cheese Farm) at the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market on Saturdays or at Noggins Corner Farm Market on Cobourg when it’s in stock. I ate my way through the new Queen’s Marque district along the waterfront. Café Lunette sells my favourite golden chai lattes. The Eastern Mediterranean-inspired Daryâ runs a $35 weekend brunch. On the bar bites menu at Drift, order Maryann’s Brown Bread with honey butter and Brothers Fried Pepperoni with Lawry’s sweet mustard (it’s a Nova Scotia thing). I finally tried a fog cone from Fog Co. “Seas the Day” puts brown butter crumble, cotton candy sprinkles and candy sea glass on a vanilla soft serve cone surrounded by a cotton candy “fog” and garnished with an edible rice paper whale.
See: In the Queen’s Marque courtyard, look for Tidal Beacon, a 60-foot art installation by artist Ned Kahn set at the harbour’s edge that changes based on tides, weather and the surrounding environment. It sits atop Rise Again, a two-storey sloped roof structure with a public space between wide timber stairs leading to its peak and a public space at its base. It hides Mystic, a fine-dining spot.
Jennifer Bain
After a career at daily newspapers, Jennifer began travelling the world in search of quirk in 2018. She goes wherever the story is, but has a soft spot for Canada and has been to all 10 provinces and all three territories. Jennifer has won multiple awards and written two cookbooks and three travel books. She lives in Toronto but has a vacation house on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, which some cheekily say is one of the four corners of the supposedly flat earth.