Santa Comes In by Coast Guard Boat. Hallmark Noticed.

Every year on the first Sunday of December, at one in the afternoon, Santa Claus arrives at the Chatham Fish Pier escorted by the Coast Guard on one of its rescue boats.

He gets off. He hands out candy canes to whoever's waiting. He climbs onto a fire truck and rides to the community center, where every child gets a present.

For years he came in aboard CG36500 — the 36-foot motor lifeboat that went out over Chatham Bar in the February 1952 nor'easter and brought thirty-two men off the broken stern of the Pendleton. That boat was decommissioned from Coast Guard service in 1968 and survives today as a restored historic vessel; Santa's escort now is a different boat. He still comes in by water.

This is exactly the sort of thing a town stops noticing about itself.

Hallmark noticed.

What Chatham is actually in

Hallmark Media launched a national search on July 1, tied to Hallmark Channel's twenty-fifth birthday. Nominations ran through August 10. Twenty-five towns were then put on a public finalist list as Official Hallmark Christmas Towns.

Chatham is on it. It is the only Massachusetts town on it. The nearest company is Marlborough, Connecticut and North Conway, New Hampshire.

Voting is open now and closes at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Friday, September 4. One vote per person per calendar day. You verify your email once, then you can come back daily.

Two things worth being straight about, because we'd rather you heard them from us.

You have to be 21. Hallmark's own FAQ page says 18, but the official rules — which the rules themselves say take precedence over everything else — put it at twenty-one years of age at the time of voting. If you're between 18 and 20, the FAQ is going to disappoint you at the wrong moment.

And the votes don't pick the winner. The rules are unambiguous: a panel of judges scores each entry on four criteria — Community Spirit, Holiday Traditions, Neighborhood Charm and Goodwill — and the highest-scoring one wins. Hallmark's own FAQ answers the question directly: Does the town with the most selections automatically win? No.

So what is voting for? Showing up. It's the town demonstrating that people are paying attention, and it costs you twenty seconds. Just don't go in thinking you're counting ballots.

What the prize actually is

The rules are careful here, and so are we.

The grand-prize town gets the designation of Hallmark's Merriest Christmas Town and the opportunity for the town to be a filming location for a Hallmark movie — with, in the rules' own words, further contracts and agreements to be negotiated. That's an opportunity, not a guarantee, and the rules say prizes have no retail value.

The other towns on the list get the Official Hallmark Christmas Town designation, a 2026 digital seal for websites and tourism material, social and marketing templates, and Countdown to Christmas promotional assets.

One oddity, and we're going to leave it odd. Hallmark's promotional pages describe twenty-five finalist towns. Hallmark's legal terms describe one grand prize plus twenty-five runners-up — up to twenty-six winning locations — while the live finalist list contains exactly twenty-five towns. Those don't reconcile, the rules say the terms control, and it isn't our job to invent an explanation for a discrepancy inside somebody else's contest.

What Chatham told them

Chatham's submission leans hard on Chatham Bars Inn, and specifically on what happens there overnight on Thanksgiving.

According to the submission, more than fifty employees — it calls them "our elves" — start at midnight and work until guests come down at seven to a hotel that has changed. Ten themed trees, seven to twelve feet. Seventy-five illuminated wreaths. More than a hundred and fifty handmade bows. Eighty light poles wrapped in balsam. Forty-five thousand lights across nearly four miles.

A century-old Santa chair and sleigh. A North Pole mailbox. A room with more than a hundred Vermont Teddy Bears in it.

Those are the town's own numbers, offered to a contest, and we're reporting them as such rather than as things anybody independently counted.

The rest of the submission is the town itself: decorated storefronts, the Christmas by the Sea stroll, the shopping, the general business of a small place taking December seriously.

The part that isn't in the submission

Christmas by the Sea is a weekend, and the weekend has a shape.

In the most recently published schedule — 2025; the 2026 dates haven't been posted yet — Friday evening ran with merchants open till nine, a children's light parade leaving the community center at half past five, the tree going on at Sears Park at quarter to six, and horse and carriage rides from Town Hall until nine. Saturday brought breakfast with Santa, The Polar Express at the Orpheum, Santa's Workshop at the chamber booth on Main Street in the afternoon, and live music on Main.

School choirs sing carols. Somebody reads "A Visit From St. Nicholas" out loud. Chatham Bars Inn hands out hot chocolate.

None of that is unique on its own. Plenty of towns do a version of it. What Chatham has is the accumulation — and the boat.

Go vote

Vote for Chatham: merriestchristmastownscontest.hallmarkchannel.com/vote/08

Once a day, every day, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Friday, September 4. U.S. residents, 21 and over. It takes about twenty seconds.

If you're going to send this to one person, send it to whoever tells you nothing ever happens out here in the winter.

The 2026 Christmas by the Sea dates haven't been published — the chamber's page still shows last year's. Santa's fish pier arrival has run on the first Sunday of December at 1 p.m.; the pier lot fills fast, so carpool. Chatham Chamber of Commerce: 508-945-5199.