FARMINGTON – Tradition trumped below-zero wind chills on Saturday morning during Chester Greenwood Day.

A 30-minute colorful parade that included carolers atop floats and musket-firing Civil War re-enactors traveling through downtown Farmington, heralded Greenwood, who invented earmuffs at the age of 15 in the late 1800s.

Bundled in jackets and parkas, crowds lined both sides of Main Street.

“Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate!” a voice rang out from vendor Amy Graham’s table at Broadway and Main opposite the T.D. Banknorth time-and-temperature sign that read 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Proceeds from Graham’s sales will join $21,000 raised since last spring for playground equipment at nearby Hippach Field.

“I think it’s great … the turnout is always fantastic,” Shirley Hennessy of Northampton, Mass., said of the parade, which, many thought attracted one of the largest crowds in years.

But, the biggest surprise of the day, which also drew large crowds, was entries in the debut Gingerbread House Contest.

“I think it’s a great idea, because it gets children and adults involved,” Janice Maxham of Industry said, taking a second pass around to see the 22 confectionary constructs atop tables inside an empty storefront between Reny’s and U.S. Cellular on Broadway Street.

Christmas music contributed to the room’s sugar-high ambience.

“Oh, yummy! It smells yummy,” one woman said, walking in out of the cold, visibly shivering.

Fifteen of the gingerbread homes and yards were built and designed by children.

“I didn’t realize it was that big of a deal. Entries were coming in so fast and furious, we didn’t even get a chance to organize them,” Tracy said.

Among construction materials used in the diabetic nightmares, were, Necco wafer shingles, frosted mini-shredded wheat-thatched roofing, black licorice shingles, candy-cane door frames, pretzel post-and-rail fences, and jellybean- or candy-lined walkways.

One dollhouse-looking building had a cutaway wall revealing a couple of gingerbread beings sitting on marshmallow lounges on a red candy carpet in front of a tea-candle fireplace stacked with black licorice logs. There were even multi-colored frosting paintings inside gingerbread frames on the walls.

One adult even created a chocolate cake-and-candy train consisting of an engine pulling three rail cars laden with candy or stacked pretzel logs past a gingerbread house. The sumptious-looking engineering marvel was named after the historic Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad.

There was even a gingerbread Eskimo igloo, complete with a chimney made with several white mini-marshmallows.

“I can’t believe the response,” organizer B. J. Tracy of Wilton said as people crowded around tables trying to judge for most creative.

“I thought that if we get six entries, we’re doing well, but 22 entries? Holy moly! It’s amazing! I’m just blown away,” added Tracy, who is also on the board of directors for the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, the organization behind the day’s events.

Melody Mooney, 4, of Carver, Mass., spent three days making her gingerbread-house diorama while visiting her grandmother, Deborah Mooney of Farmington.

It sported a fully decorated Christmas tree beside a white frosting-covered house topped with Necco wafers. Five black Yorkie candy dogs frolicked in the frosting yard opposite a ring of hands-holding photographic-image cutouts of Mooney, her face smiling back from the large gingerbread man cutout at Santa’s Village in Jefferson, N.H.

“We went to Santa’s Village last summer and she wanted to use pictures of her from there, posing in the gingerbread-man cutout,” Mooney’s grandmother said.

It was her first time overseeing gingerbread-house construction and her granddaughter’s first confectionary engineering feat.

“She went to town with it. It’s the beginning of a tradition, I think,” she added.

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