Last weekend may have kicked off the holiday season in Newtown — tree lightings at Ram Pasture and Sandy Hook Glen, concerts, arts and crafts shows, and the Holiday Festival among other offerings — but the fun continues. If you’re still recovering from all the activities last weekend, snap out of it! There is plenty going on this weekend, too, so get ready.

Saturday’s offerings include Breakfast with Santa at the middle school. The one-hour event is just enough time to get a good breakfast (and visit with Santa and Mrs Claus, of course) before heading out to an arts and crafts show at The Homesteads, which will run from 10 am until 5 pm. Newtown Choral Society will be performing its winter concert at 7:30 at Newtown Meeting House that evening.

Another holiday craft festival will be presented on Sunday, this one in the town hall’s gymnasium from 11 am to 4 pm. And music lovers have two choices Sunday afternoon. At 4 pm, Newtown Congregational Church will host “A Song Is In The Air,” a recital of holiday music by Newtown and Ridgefield residents in the church’s sanctuary on West Street, and St Rose’s Choral Festival Choir and Folk Choir will be performing a major cantata in its sanctuary on Church Hill Road.

Fred Goebel, “The Sailboat Man” who was pictured in the November 26 issue of The Newtown Bee enjoying one of his favorite pastimes — sailing his 32-inch Victor sailboat around Hawley Pond in The Ram Pasture — stopped in The Bee office this week. Mr Goebel said he’s been noticed by more people since his photo appeared in the paper, and was tickled to hear that the photo had also run in the November 26 issue of The Bee Extra. He was curious about the photo in The Extra, and was a little embarrassed when he saw that it took up two-thirds of the front page of that publication. Mr Goebel was stopping in the office on his way to do some errands. He had just left Hawley Pond, where he had been sailing his boat again. He said the wind had picked up too much and had damaged the boat, but he was going to fix it and get it back into the pond as soon as possible.

Marci Benitez reports that the cut-a-thon at Fun Kutz in Sandy Hook center last Saturday raised more than $1,000 for 7-year-old Cary DeYoung, who was badly burned while trick-or-treating his neighborhood on Halloween. Ms Benitez said that not only were children and adults getting their hair cut, but people also were coming in just to donate money. “It was a very heartwarming experience,” she said. “We did it on a Saturday because that’s our busiest day, and the good feeling that we all got from the cut-a-thon was worth more than any money we would otherwise have made that day.”

It’s a sure bet that Jill Wolowitz, Marie Fodor, and Sue Catino, members of the Board of Realtors, are hoping that the pewter porringers their board is sponsoring for the tercentennial will sell as well out in the general public as they did at the meeting of the Newtown Tercentennial Steering Committee last week. Within mere minutes the supply of porringers they had brought into the meeting was sold out. The porringers, emblazoned with the tercentennial seal, are on sale for $20 at the C.H. Booth Library circulation desk or by calling Marie Fodor at 426-5679 or Sue Catino and Jill Wolowicz at 426-8426.

Dick Sturdevant told Tercentennial Steering Committee members last week that Newtown’s original 1705 deed is tightly sealed in a highly secure environment in Hartford’s State Library. “It’s like you’re going into CIA headquarters,” he said of his recent visit to the library. The town is seeking return of the deed from the state archives.

It seems the cockatiels are on the move again –– at least we have heard of one who escaped his home in the Bay Colony Trailer Park in Botsford on November 23. The male, gray and white bird with yellow head and orange cheeks is named Thunder, and he was last seen “heading north,” his owner Dan Young said, adding, “He could have gone anywhere by now.” Although the weather has been pretty cold and wet for cockatiels to be outside and unprotected, Dan is hopeful that someone has seen Thunder or, better yet, has taken him in. “He’s quite affectionate and will come to an outstretched arm or a whistle,” Dan says. But Thunder does not like fingers, he warns. Anyone who knows anything about an escaped cockatiel found during the last three weeks should call Dan Young at 426-7936.

It’s time for me to fly as well. But I’ll be back next week, so…

Read me again.