Fireworks explode over the Winter Carnival Ice Palace in February. The theme selection for next year’s carnival is down to five and the public vote is scheduled for April 8. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — There are five potential themes for next year’s Saranac Lake Winter Carnival — “America’s Birthday,” “Cartoonival,” “Game Night,” “Winter Sports” and “Wizards and Dragons” — and a public vote next month will decide what carnival-goers will be dressed up as come next February.

The Carnival Committee, which is open to the public, met on Tuesday to whittle a sizeable list of around 80 theme suggestions down to the final five.

The vote on which of these five themes will be the 2026 Carnival theme is scheduled for April 8. The public is again invited to attend and vote. The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Saranac Lake Elk’s Lodge on the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Church Street. Anyone who shows up gets a vote.

The Enterprise will conduct a straw poll on these five theme suggestions, but a vote in the poll is not an official vote for the theme.

“It goes in the Enterprise. It goes on Facebook. We listen to people. We take input,” Committee Chair Jeff Branch said. “But the only thing that counts is if you show up on (April 8) and vote.”

On Tuesday, they first had to cut down the list. Democracy manifest itself as there was lots of discussion on how voting should work. They removed any themes that were too similar to those in the past 20 years, themes deemed too specific or vague or any themes that might propose issues — anything from encouraging a lot of costumes with guns, to encouraging candy-throwing at the parade.

As is tradition, the “Fiesta” theme was again debated. “Adirondack Fiesta” was set to be the 2018 Carnival theme, but was changed to “Adirondack Festival” after concerns from the community about cultural insensitivity. Ultimately, it made the top 10, but not the top five.

Eventually, the committee trimmed the list down to the final five.

“America’s Birthday” is a celebration of the 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. This country’s birthday is five months later on July 4, but there are events around the nation planned in the lead-up to the day.

The birthday is technically called a “semiquincentennial,” a “bisesquicentennial” or a “sestercentennial.” Several people pitched this theme.

“Cartoonival” had several suggestions too, with committee member Chris Grimone pitching the name — a combination of “cartoon” and “carnival” — and saying it would be fun for all ages. It would be a celebration of all things animated — Saturday morning cartoons, comic strips, anime, comic books, manga, movies and TV shows.

“Game Night” is an amalgamation of several themes that have been proposed for years — board games, video games and a casino night theme. Committee member Sam Baker suggested they combine and expand the theme into one celebrating all sorts of games.

Carnival committee members commented on how “game night” might mean different things to different generations — sitting around a table playing Monopoly, Settlers of Catan and Uno or sitting around a television playing Mario Kart, Minecraft or Pokemon.

Winter Sports is a celebration of all the activities locals enjoy in the snow or on the ice, and would coincide with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

Committee member Liz Murray said with the potential of Lake Placid getting the Olympic sliding sports events if the track in Italy is not completed in time, it would be a cool tie-in. Committee member Bob Gill pointed out that two members of the Ice Palace Workers 101 have kids who are Olympic sliders.

The committee chose to focus on winter sports, since the International Olympic Committee has copyright on words like “Olympic.”

Wizards and Dragons got a big cheer from the committee when it was brought up. Committee member Milt Adams has been pitching this idea for nearly two decades. His persistence matches his passion for the theme. He loves the idea of people donning tall caps, scaly suits, wands and hoards of gold to bring magic to Carnival. Wizards and dragons are prolific in modern culture, with countless references in media, games and myths.

Just to be safe, Adams also pitched “Dragons and Wizards.”

Winter Carnival takes place in the first two weekends of February every year.