Newtown’s 18th Annual Holiday Festival Is In The Works

The 18th Annual Family Counseling Center Holiday Festival will be presented in buildings and homes on and near Main Street in Newtown on Sunday, December 7. It will be the capping event in a weekend that has become Newtown’s official entry into the holiday season – beginning with the lighting of the town’s holiday tree on Friday evening, continuing with countless public events on Saturday, and running right into the afternoon-long festival on Sunday.

The festival offers an antiques show, an arts and crafts show, ballet performances, The Festival of Trees, a Victorian Tea with live music, New England Café, and a walking tour of private homes that are opened only for the festival – and the benefit of Family Counseling Center, a United Way agency on Mt Pleasant Road in Newtown. The Holiday Festival is the counseling center’s largest fundraiser each year.

Most events will begin at 11 am; the antiques show and the arts and crafts show will both open at 10 am.

The Festival of Trees is a raffle event that offers centerpieces, miniature decorated trees, wreaths of all sizes, and baskets and gift certificates created and donated by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, families, individuals, and businesses in and around Newtown.

Ballet performances are offered by students of Newtown Centre for Classical Ballet.

The arts and crafts show will be moving into a new location this year: Newtown High School. Most other events will all be centered around the town’s Main Street, including many located within Edmond Town Hall at 45 Main Street and C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.

Admission to festival events is by ticket. Adult festival tickets are $20 in advance, $25 on December 7. Tickets for seniors and children between the ages of 6 and 14 are $15 in advance, $18 the day of the festival.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at Drug Center Pharmacy, on Church Hill Road; Family Counseling Center, 121 Mt Pleasant Road; and Newtown Savings Bank branches in Newtown, Monroe, and Southbury. The Greenwood Avenue branch of Newtown Savings Bank in Bethel is also selling tickets in advance.

Volunteer Opportunities

And Craft Fair Openings

The Family Counseling Center Newtown Holiday Festival will take place this year on Sunday, December 7. The majority of the events will run from 11 am to 5 pm; the festival’s arts and crafts show and its antiques show traditionally begin at 10 am.

Committees have been meeting for months to plan for the events of the festival, and a number of volunteer opportunities are available.

The festival’s opening event is a Festival Gala, which will be in Danbury on Friday, December 5. The gala will be at The Amber Room Colonnade in Danbury. Volunteers are needed to help put up decorations, check in the guests and work in the reception area, and serve as cashiers for the gala’s auctions (silent and live).

There are openings for those who would be able to set up signs for the festival the day before the event, and then return to take the signs down once the festival is complete.

On the day of the festival, help is needed to sell tickets, and tour guides for the homes on the walking tour are needed.

The New England Café needs people to set up the room, replenish the food during the course of the day, bus tables, serve as cashier, and help with clean-up.

Runners are needed for the antiques show, and also for the arts and crafts show, during set-up and take-down. There are also a few openings remaining for vendors who would like to participate in the arts and crafts fair. Contact Leslie Troy (270-9460) or Laura Kurtz (426-7876) for an application or additional information regarding the crafts show.

For additional festival details or information on volunteer opportunities, contact Holiday Festival chairman Nancy Obremski at 364-0597.