December 2020 E-Newsletter

10th Annual

Gingerbread House Festival:

A Picture Perfect Holiday

Friday, November 24, 2020 - January 3, 2021

hosted by the Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk

It's back for the 10th Year!

We are so happy to be celebrating our 10th Annual Gingerbread House Festival: A Picture Perfect Holiday with colorful and creative window displays at The Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk. Enjoy a festive seasonal event November 27, 2020 – January 3, 2021, in an outdoor environment where participants are able to socially distance and follow Covid-19 safety recommendations. Gaze upon gingerbread masterpieces created by local bakers and artisans displayed in several thematic holiday windows created by dedicated volunteers:

A Storybook Holiday
Chanukah
The North Pole
Peace On Earth
Candyland
Winter Birds
Gingerbread Traditions
Winter Wonderland
Colonial New England

The windows are scattered along Evergreen Way. Directions to the festival, a map of the window locations along with our annual scavenger hunt are available on our website.

THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS

The Friends of Wood Memorial Library & Museum was committed to making the Gingerbread Festival, a “can’t miss” community event, available to the public during this unusual holiday season. Our dedicated corps of volunteers went above and beyond to ensure that the 10th Annual Gingerbread House Festival: A Picture Perfect Holiday could be enjoyed yet again!

In a normal year the Festival would be our largest fundraiser, due to house raffles and the Ye Olde Gingerbread Shoppe. If you enjoy our window displays and are able to, please consider becoming Friend of the Festival.

Support the Festival -Become a Friend

Donations can be made securely online, in person at Connecticut Mattress by Tom Wholley, or by mail to the PO Box listed below (checks should be made out to "Friends of WMLM."

A Picture Perfect Holiday!

We rely on a huge number of volunteers to make this festival possible. Volunteers are still needed when we breakdown the window spaces on Monday, January 4, 2021 . Please contact us to get involved!

Victorian Gossip Girl: Annie Adams Fields by History At Play™, LLC

December 3, 2020
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

We are happy to welcome back History At Play™, LLC Artistic Director, Judith Kalaora, for this LIVESTREAM online performance.

This hour-long program features the life and observations of the American literary scout and philanthropist Annie Fields. The program features anecdotes regarding the major Transcendentalist literary masters, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Dickens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and more.

The program is appropriate for all ages, and will be followed by Real-Time Audience Q&A with Judith Kalaora. This is a program that is especially well-suited for livestream events.

Looking forward to 2021

Looking back at 2020, what a year it has been! What will 2021 bring? Creativity and determination continues to abound at The Wood! We will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Friends of Wood Memorial Library & Museum and online educational field trips will be available soon. We are also working creating additional online exhibits for our patrons in 2021 including one focused on more notable South Windsor women.

Meet our Educators

Many of you may have watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which featured a land acknowledgment, traditional rattle song and a blessing honoring people of Native American tribes historically based in the Northeast. One of the Indigenous Ambassadors featured in the segment was Annawon Weeden, one of our Nowashe Village museum educators! Annawon has additionally consulted with us for our creation of virtual field trips.

We have several educators that help bring authentic, high quality programming for our patrons. We are fortunate and grateful to have such talent working with us and we thought we would create an area on our website where we could share their backgrounds with everyone. Meet Annawon Weeden, Chef Sherry Pocknett, and Bonnie Plourde! More bios coming soon.

Pictured at right, Chef Sherry Pocknett inside Nowashe Village