Crowds Return To Main Street For The Popular Newtown

Holiday Festival

By Shannon Hicks

Good weather and a variety of events helped The 19th Annual Family Counseling Center Newtown Holiday Festival become a success last weekend. Numbers have not been finalized yet, but festival co-chairman Leslie Troy told The Bee this week that presale tickets for the December 5 celebration “far surpassed” last year, when a predicted snowstorm kept many people from buying tickets in advance. That 2003 storm dumped 15 inches of snow on Newtown in the 24 hours leading into the festival, which also kept many people away from the center of town on the day of the event.

This year the good weather brought people back out to Edmond Town Hall for ballet performances and Victorian Tea, to private homes (and one historic barn) on and around Main Street that had been decorated and spruced up for the event, to the high school for an arts and crafts show, an antiques show, a student art show, and dance performances, and to a number of additional locations for refreshments.

Even the Holiday Festival Gala, an event traditionally held the evening before the festival, was deemed a success by Mrs Troy. The gala was held at The Amber Room in Danbury and “it went really well.”

More than 50 items were raffled, and another 15 were sold during a live auction. Bob Tendler and Richard Coopersmith served as co-auctioneers this year.

“They were quite a team. They were very funny and they worked together very well,” Mrs Troy said.

Most of the chairmen of the various Holiday Festival events were able to attend Saturday’s gala event.

“It was amazing, after all the work everyone did to prepare for the festival, that we were able to sit down for a few hours and relax before the big day,” Mrs Troy said this week. Not that everyone sat for the duration of the gala.

“The music was wonderful. I’ve never seen a dance floor so mobbed at a formal event,” she laughed.

There were no surprises for Mrs Troy or her Holiday Festival co-chair Laura Miller Kurtz on Sunday. The weather cooperated, and traffic on foot and by auto was steady all afternoon.

“People were walking all over the place. There were lines at most of the Idea Homes, but we heard that even those lines were moving well,” Mrs Troy said. “The Millers’ barn and the Reed house seemed to draw the most excitement, although the Stendahl house on Hanover was absolutely beautiful.

“We had had pictures taken for the event, but I brought my little camera with me for that house. It was just wonderful,” she continued. “It was warm and cozy, and Diana from The Painted Bungalow had painted the ceiling to exactly match the wallpaper in one of the rooms. I just can’t say enough about that house.”

The only thing that seemed to be a drawback from Sunday was that most of the traffic observed seemed to hover around the Main Street events.

“I would have liked to see more people at the high school, for the arts and crafts and antiques show,” Mrs Troy said. “We’ve started thinking that for next year we may divide up some of the events over the course of two days or maybe even two weekends. There might be too much on the ticket for people to fully enjoy in one day.”

After speaking with the arts and crafts vendors who participated in the show and sale at the high school, plans are already underway for the 1st Annual Family Counseling Center Spring Arts & Crafts Show. It will be presented at Reed Intermediate School and it will include many of the vendors who participated in last weekend’s holiday festival.

Family Counseling Center counts on the annual Holiday Festivals for a large part of its operating budget. The proceeds from ticket sales, vendor fees, and donations all help the state-licensed and nationally accredited mental health counseling agency provide services to its clients all year.

The counseling center, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, provides affordable services to clients (individuals, couples, and families) in the greater Danbury and Southbury area. Located at 121 Mt Pleasant Road in Newtown, Family Counseling Center can be reached at 426-8103.