About four Decembers ago, Boothbay’s Ellen Newton and her Vietnam War era veteran husband Bob Newton brought three of their grandchildren along on a trip with Wreaths Across America to Virginia.

They each laid wreaths on graves at Arlington National Cemetery. To look out and see that sea of white stones change to white, green and red, with the wreaths and their decorations, was stunning, Ellen Newton, whose father Jim Stevens was a World War II veteran, said.

Her family and the hundreds of other volunteers there in Arlington were all quiet, in reverence.

The scene differed from the one Newton joined in Sunday night on the Wiscasset town office lawn, but it, too, was full of honor for soldiers and those who honor them.

Dozens of people waved flags over and over and spoke about what they were seeing as motorcycles, emergency vehicles with lights and sirens going, and large trucks carrying Wreaths Across America wreaths traveled southbound on Route 1. The passing vehicles’ horns also sounded, adding to the experience for witnesses.

So did Wiscasset Fire Department’s members and fire trucks, one with its towering white ladder raised against the night sky. Members parked the trucks in the station’s driveway facing Route 1.

Most attendees waited an hour or more for the minutes’ long string of wreath trucks and escort vehicles, first expected in town at about 4 p.m. Darkness fell as people talked, sat, went to their cars to warm up, and waited. Missy Cossette, wife of American Legion Post 54 of Wiscasset Commander Bill Cossette Jr., loaned out flags to attendees.

“I want everyone to have a flag to hold,” she said. Numerous times during the wait for the wreaths convoy, passing motorists sounded their vehicles’ horns for the crowd on the lawn near the veterans wall.

Up the coast at a related event earlier Sunday, Cossette’s husband and other members of the post got to shake hands with Wreaths Across America founder Morrill Worcester.

“It meant quite a lot actually,” Cossette said about the handshake. Worcester was thanking the veterans, but they were thankful to him for starting the wreaths program, Cossette said.

Also on the lawn in Wiscasset Sunday night were Deb Ethier and, in her arms part of the time, granddaughter Lyla Reed.

It’s important to honor veterans and Wreaths Across America, Ethier, a daughter and niece of veterans, said about why she and other family members came.

Reed was holding a bright red flag. “Red for Christmas,” her grandmother said.