Holiday Festival Will Include Returning Favorites Among New Offerings

An early December holiday festival will be presented so that all of Newtown and residents from surrounding towns can gather to continue celebrating the holiday season. The 2011 Holiday Festival event will take place Sunday, December 4, and will welcome returning favorites and present some new offerings.

The Newtown Savings Bank Presents The 26th Annual Holiday Festival To Benefit Newtown Youth & Family Services — the formal name of the Holiday Festival — will be focused on Main Street, with events taking place at C.H. Booth Library and Edmond Town Hall.

The festival, filled with family friendly events, will run from 11 am to 5 pm.

Festival tickets are $15 per person, or $30 for a family four-pack (two adults and two children), with tickets for additional children $5 each. Tickets are available at Everything Newtown, 61 Church Hill Road; C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street; and Newtown Savings Bank’s two Newtown branches (39 Main Street and 228 South Main Street, within Sand Hill Plaza) and Bethel branch at 68 Stony Hill Road (Route 6).

The two events taking place at the town’s library, at 25 Main Street, are the Gingerbread House Contest and the Festival of Trees.

Families, friends, clubs, and organizations are all invited to enter their edible creations. Those who would like a bit of advice on building a gingerbread dwelling are invited to participate in a Gingerbread House Workshop being hosted by the library on Thursday, December 1. Cost is $8 per person ($5 of which will then be deducted from the price of a Holiday Festival family ticket), and the library will provide everything needed to make a house.

“Completed houses can be entered that afternoon into the contest, they can be taken home to finish, or they can just be taken home to keep,” said Candice Foster, the executive director of NYFS.

Participation in the workshop is not a prerequisite to entering the Holiday Festival event.

“Families can enter the Holiday Festival contest without taking the workshop,” Ms Foster said.

Those who want to participate in the one hour workshop, which will start at 5 pm, need to register in advance so that supplies can be planned for. Call Kaitlyn Johnson at the NYFS office, 203-270-4335, to register. Ms Johnson and Ms Foster will be leading the gingerbread house workshop.

An entry form for the Holiday Festival Gingerbread House Contest is available on NYFS’s website (NewtownYouthAndFamilyServices.org).

There are a number of categories for this year’s contest, and ribbons will be awarded in each category: Adult Individual (age 18 and up), Adult Group, Individual Child, with children to enter by grade (K–2, 3–5, 6–8 or 9–12), and Child — Group (same grade brackets), and Family (minimum one adult and one child).

Entries will need to be picked up from the library on Sunday after 4 pm, or on Monday, December 5, between 9:30 am and 8 pm (regular library hours).

Festival Of Trees

As with the Gingerbread House Contest, the Festival of Trees is also open to any group/club, individual, organization or business that wants to put a decorated tree and/or wreath into the collection. Previous collections have also included swags and decorative items.

Items can be live, artificial, stuffed, ceramics, wood, confections, etc. All live trees must be balled, however, not cut. Otherwise, entries are limited only by the imagination of their donor.

Decorations can be traditional, evoke a theme, sport, hobby, craft or talent. Businesses are allowed to use their items to promote their business or profession.

Trees need to include a stand to allow them to be freestanding. Trees and wreaths can range in size from tabletop centerpieces to being five feet tall.

Entries for this event will be dropped off at the library on Friday, December 2, so that the public can view and begin bidding on the trees on Saturday. The Festival of Trees will run Saturday and Sunday, December 3 and 4. The public will take a chance on each item through the purchase of raffle tickets.

Denise Rodriguez is organizing this event, and can be reached at denisergz@sbcglobal.net or 203-426-5859.

“Anyone can visit the Festival of Trees, whether or not you have a Holiday Festival ticket,” Ms Rodriguez pointed out.

Additional details and guidelines for those planning to enter the Gingerbread House Contest have been posted on NYFS’s website, along with details about the Festival of Trees and the Decorated Door/House Contest.

Additional Offerings

Meanwhile, the town hall, at 45 Main Street, will be home to The Teddy Bear Tea, a different take on the Victorian Tea of previous years; Mix & Match Free Throw Tournament, a brand-new event; two performances of Nutcracker Suite Ballet by Jennifer Johnston’s Malenkee Ballet Repertoire Company/Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet, a perennial favorite; and the debut of The Stray Kats Theatre Company at the Holiday Festival, who will offer a trio of one-act plays.

The performances will all be in the town hall’s theater. The ballet performances will be at noon and 2 pm, and the Stray Kats — who have traditionally done their readings in the Alexandria Room — will take the stage on the building’s main floor at 4 pm.

The Teddy Bear Tea, in the Alexandria Room, will again be filled with music and plenty of tea and breads. The new focus will be on children and their favorite teddy bears (or stuffed animals). A Best Dressed Bear Contest is also planned. Children should bring their favorite teddy bear to the Tea by 2 pm, when a winner will be selected.

Town Historian Dan Cruson will lead Historic Walking Tours of Main Street. Each tour will last approximately 45 minutes, with Mr Cruson’s focus to be on the history and architecture along the route. Tours will begin at 11 am and 1 and 3 pm, and are included in the cost of a Holiday Festival ticket.

Also new this year is a Decorated Door & House Contest, open to all residents of town.

For this contest, residents are invited to decorate the front door or their entire home, and e-mail a photo to Kaitlyn Johnson (KJohnson@NewtownYouthAndFamilyServices.org) by December 2. The photos will be printed and posted at Edmond Town Hall and on Sunday during the Holiday Festival, the public will be invited to vote for their favorite.

Also on Sunday’s schedule are the Advent Service of Lessons & Carols at Trinity Episcopal Church and an open house at Matthew Curtiss House. These events are both free and open to the public. Trinity’s service will begin at 2 pm in the sanctuary at 36 Main Street.

The Matthew Curtiss House, at 44 Main Street, is the headquarters of Newtown Historical Society. Costumed docents traditionally offer tours of the 18th Century saltbox construction, which will be decorated in historic fashion.

To find out more about NYFS or the Holiday Festival, call 203-270-4335 or visit www.NewtownYouthAndFamilyServices.org, or NewtownBee.com and click on the Features tab.