Volunteers Are Decking The Halls, With Nutcracker Theme, At Osborne Homestead Museum

DERBY — For twenty years volunteers have decorated dozens of Christmas trees, tied hundreds of bows and delighted thousands of visitors at Osborne Homestead Museum. Each holiday season volunteers create the lavish holiday decorations.

The Ansonia Garden Club and the Olde Ripton Garden Club of Shelton have been part of the festivities since the museum first opened in 1983. Current members and other volunteers have returned to decorate the museum for the 2003 season.

“Our garden club members just love this house,” said Frances Hope of Shelton, one of the Olde Ripton organizers. “Each year there is the challenge of how to create something new and beautiful. It seems like every year the ideas get better.” This year the garden clubs were given the theme of “The Nutcracker.” Each room in the museum reflects a different scene in this popular holiday classic.

The museum’s holiday season will officially begin on Sunday, November 29. It will be open for the holiday season through December 20, from Thursday through Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm.

“This year we have more garden clubs participating than ever before,” said Osborne Homestead curator Christiana Soares Jones.

This season the Ansonia and Shelton clubs are joined by volunteers from Oxford Garden Club, Naugatuck Garden Club, Friends of Oxford, Derby Garden Society, and the Women’s Guild of Shelton’s Trinity Lutheran Church.

The garden club members work throughout the year on their decorating. Some of them start after Christmas Day, searching for ideas and bargains for the next year’s decorating theme. The garden clubs then gather for a “Christmas in July” meeting at Osborne Homestead Museum. Many of their efforts come together in the fall as they meet in workshops creating the many decorations.

On the evenings of Fridays, December 5, 12 and 19, the museum will present Twilight Tours to highlight the special glow of the decorations in the evening hours.

Group tours for adults, schools and youth programs are available every day of the week; call 734-2513 for an appointment.

There is no admission cost; donations are gratefully accepted. The Osborne Homestead Museum is at 500 Hawthorne Avenue, Derby. Signs are posted from Route 34.