New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
5 WAYS TO JUMP-START YULETIDE SEASON IN REGION.
If it’s Thanksgiving week — even during a lingering pandemic — it’s also a time when people start angling for gift purchases and, in the holiday spirit, stroll New England towns with Hallmark movie feel.
Here’s five ideas to feel out after you’ve said your thanks for blessings:
▶ In a first for the open-air village and shopping center, Olde Mistick Village in Mystic isd hosting a Holiday Lights Spectacular that promises to be the largest outdoor lights display in southern New England. That means a half-million lights decorating shops and restaurants at the village.
The display will be up through the end of January, with visitors’ face coverings and social distancing requested. Olde Mistick Village also announced the return of the annual Holiday Carnival on Saturday, Dec. 5, and Luminaria on Friday, Dec. 11.
The shops will be open from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10-9 on Fridays and Saturdays and 11-6 on Sundays.
▶ Bridgeport’s Beardsley
Zoo will open its Winter Wonderland Walk Saturday, Nov. 28. You can stroll through the zoo’s Winter Town and enjoy 10 festive vignettes, including Fairy House Lane, Poinsettia Pass, Snowman Way, Dreidel Drive, Gingerbread Boulevard, Kris Kringle Corner, Nutcracker Suite, Evergreen Lane and Gratitude Way.
The new event runs through the zoo’s regular admission hours, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Winter Wonderland Walk is included in the price of admission, which you can buy online at Beardsleyzoo.org. The Zoo will offer a $1 voucher for its cafe or gift shop to guests who bring a nonperishable food item for the Bridgeport Rescue Mission. Limit two vouchers per family per visit.
▶ Wethersfield literally has that Christmas movie appeal, since a couple of Hallmark cable movies already filmed in its old downtown section. There’s Old Wethersfield Country Store; the friendly popup Drumroll Coffee Roasters, which is a new place we found for fresh-roasted beans; and Heirloom Market at Comstock Ferre, which has a cafe and sells heirloom flower and vegetable seeds in a nod to its long history.
▶ Speaking of shopping at local places from Stamford to Milford to New Haven to Derby, Cheshire and Durham, Saturday, Nov. 28, is Small Business Saturday, an important part of the season for small businesses as they work to recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, notes SBS backer American Express. And a day later brings Artists Sunday, where you can go to a website, artistssunday.com, to see and buy wares from artists in little ol’ Connecticut and across the country. One more? Sunday is also Museum Store Sunday, being observed by 1,400 stores this year.
▶ Connecticut Landmarks is offering state residents a chance to take part in a holiday wreath making event after they pick up the makings at one of four landmark locations. During a live
Zoom session, Connecticut Landmarks’ site administrators will show participants step-by-step how to create their evergreen wreath.The virtual workshop will be held on Sunday, Nov. 29, at 2 p.m. and will be available on-demand after the live session to ensure that wreath-makers of all schedules can check it out.
The wreath kit ($45, or $35 for CTL members) includes greens, a 12-inch wire wreath ring, wire, festive red bow and written instructions. The Zoom link will be sent via email to all registered attendees. Supplies to make a wreath with a decorative bow will be available for pick-up at one of our four sites: Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden, 9 Main St. North, Bethlehem; or Amos Bull House/ Butler-McCook House & Garden, 59 South Prospect S., Hartford, on Friday, Nov. 27, Or 2-4 p.m. And 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 28, at the Nathan Hale Homestead, 2299 South St., Coventry, or PhelpsHatheway House & Garden, 55 South Main St., Suffield.