Holiday Festival Returning For 20th Anniversary On December 4

By Shannon Hicks

The Family Counseling Center will present its Annual Holiday Festival on Sunday, December 4.

For 2005 — the 20th annual presentation of an event that reaches out to interests for all ages — Festival Chairman Laura Miller Kurtz says the six-hour event will return to Main Street and the immediate area. In years past the festival had moved from some of its traditional Main Street locations to sites in Sandy Hook Center, Newtown High School, and even the hall at Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Department’s main station.

The festival will run from 11 am until 5 pm.

Edmond Town Hall, at 45 Main Street, will host an antiques show and sale in the gymnasium and a Victorian Tea in the building’s third floor Alexandria Room. The antiques show will open at 10 am.

The town hall’s auditorium will host ballet performances of Nutcracker Suite at 1 and 3 pm. Live music will be offered during the Victorian Tea by recital students from Newtown piano studios. The town hall will also be home to the Family Workshop and Photos with Santa this year.

The Festival of Trees will return also, and will be set up at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street. Located in the lower meeting room, this event allows visitors to purchase raffle tickets and take their chance on trees and wreaths decorated by local groups (garden clubs, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, families) and even a few individuals, along with gift baskets donated by local businesses.

Trinity Episcopal Church, at 31 Main Street, will present its annual Advent Service of Lessons and Carols at 4 pm.

Perhaps one of the strongest attractions for the festival is the tours of private homes, which is also returning for 2005.

Five homes have been slated for the festival, two of which are on Main Street and one is on South Main. The fourth house is on Summit Road and the fifth home is on Deep Brook.

Two of the homes will be treated as decorator showcases. Joan Yarrow, from Victoria Yarrow Home Décor, has completely refurnished the Summit Road home (and will add greenery for the day of the festival), while Diana Baxter, owner of The Painted Bungalow, will furnish and decorate the main floor of one of the Main Street homes.

For residents who have been wondering about the interior of The Dana-Holcombe House, the brand-new bed and breakfast at 29 Main Street, owners John and Jane Vouros will open their home and business for the festival. In addition to seeing the beautiful rooms and carefully selected antiques and decorative accessories that adorn the home, Holiday Festival ticket-holders will have a chance to see pieces from the Vouroses’ personal collection of Newtown-related items.

Missing from this year’s lineup is an arts and crafts show.

“We really wanted to have everything on or near Main Street again this year, especially with it being a major anniversary,” Mrs Kurtz said this week. “There isn’t a large enough venue for the arts and crafts show on Main Street, not with the other events we’re planning.”

While the arts and crafts show has disappeared from the festival for this year, there is an addition to the day’s events. Newtown Choral Society will be performing a concert at 3:30 at Newtown Meeting House.

“The addition of the choral society concert is new and exciting for us,” said Mrs Kurtz. “We’re getting a lot of calls from people who want to be involved and that’s just great. It shows how much the festival has grown, and it’s gratifying that so many people want to be a part of this thing.”

Finally, the event that kicks off each year’s Holiday Festival — a Gala Preview Party — will take place on Saturday, December 3, this year at La Fortuna, on Route 6 in Bethel.

This event is a formal dinner-dance with silent and live auctions. This year’s auctions will include a quilt created by a group of residents for the tercentennial (see related story) and one of the winter-size flags that flew on Newtown’s flagpole earlier this year. The smaller of the flags that fly at the top of the landmark at Church Hill Road and Main Street measures 12 by 18 feet (the summer flags are 20 by 30 feet).

The evening will also include dancing to DJ selections, along with live music performed by John Voket.

“The closer location of this year’s gala [just over the Newtown line, as opposed to holding the event at The Amber Room in Danbury as in years past] is a bonus,” said Holiday Festival Gala chairman Barbara Pisacreta.

“This event is open to all Newtown residents. Don’t wait for an invitation to be sent out — everyone is welcome to order tickets and come to the gala,” she stressed.

Gala tickets are $100, and reservations must be made in advance (contact Family Counseling Center).

Tickets for the 20th Annual Holiday Festival are $23 for adults if purchased in advance, or $25 on the day of the festival. Tickets are needed for admission into all festival events.

Tickets for children and seniors are $20, regardless of when they are purchased.

Advance tickets are available until December 2 at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street; Drug Center Pharmacy, 61 Church Hill Road; Family Counseling Center, 121 Mt Pleasant Road; The Little Green Barn, 4 Washington Avenue; Mocha Coffee House, 3 Glen Road; and Newtown Savings Bank branches in Newtown, Bethel, Monroe, and Southbury.

On the day of the festival, ticket vendors will be set up at Edmond Town Hall and C.H. Booth Library.

The Holiday Festival is the annual major fundraiser for Family Counseling Center, Inc. The center is a not-for-profit agency begun in 1983 to meet the changing needs of individuals and families in the greater Danbury and Southbury area through counseling, support groups, education, and referral services. These are all available regardless of a person’s or group’s ability to pay.

The center is a United Way-funded agency and its counseling and substance abuse programs are state licensed; its counseling program and educational program are nationally accredited.

Contact Family Counseling Center for additional information or ticket purchases at 426-8103.