Tonight gingerbread houses will be aglow once again for Grand Illumination Night, a cherished Camp Ground tradition for almost 150 years. The action gets underway at 7:30 p.m., and the first lantern is lit at dusk.

CJ Rivard compares Illumination Night to Christmas Day. The bright lights. The excitement. The tradition.

Life in the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association (informally called the Camp Ground) is a unique experience, and never more so than on Illumination Night. Each August the event draws thousands of visitors, as residents adorn their cottages with lanterns in a tradition dating back to 1868.

Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, two outs, one ball, two strikes. At this point, it could be anyone’s game. Little League bragging rights are on the line.

Come dusk tonight, the Victorian gingerbread houses at the Camp Ground in Oak Bluffs will be a magical fantasy land, aglow with light from lanterns.

On August 20, the Camp Ground will turn into a fantasy land of Victorian gingerbread houses and hundreds of paper lanterns hanging from porches. Welcome once again to the Grand Illumination.

At dusk last night a single lantern lit by Gordon Long and his son Roy made its way down the center aisle of the Tabernacle in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. There was a collective gasp from the large crowd gathered inside the Tabernacle and around blankets and picnic baskets on the lawn.

The gingerbread cottages that occupy the Camp Ground surrounding the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs don’t really need adornment. They are already ornately decorated, boasting vibrant paint and colorful coordinating trim. They are picture-book perfect, the handsome and popular subjects of whimsical Island postcards and indeed picture books. But embellished they will be, tomorrow night, to recognize the Vineyard’s annual Grand Illumination night.