Featured Events, Resources, & Opportunities

The Connecticut Trolley Museum’s Annual Winterfest & the Tunnel of Lights begins Nov 25 and will be held from 5-9pm on Fri-Sun nights through Dec 23. Additionally, the Museum will be open from Dec 26-30. Halls are decked both inside & outside. Trolley cars transport guests down a tunnel of lights as they sing traditional Christmas Carols with their trolley car operators. For an open-air view of the “Tunnel of Lights,” enjoy a sleigh car lit up with holiday lights. The Visitor Center is decorated as a Winter Wonderland with model train layouts & lights galore. Admission: $15-$20. Ticket sales must be made in advance: www.ct-trolley.org. Other events include Picture with Santa on 11/25 & Storytime Trolley with Santa & his Elf on 12/3 & 12/10.

On Thursday, December 8 at 9:30am, the Smith College Museum of Art, partnering with Northampton Public School’s Early Childhood Center, is pleased to offer this second in a series of thematic stroller tours. The December 8 Stroller Tour theme is LIGHT. This event, for caregivers with infants in tow, is designed to connect caregivers and build community through art. Register here: https://bit.ly/3haOmnq. Drop-ins welcome. Smith College Museum of Art. 413-585-2760. 20 Elm Street at Bedford Terrace. Northampton, MA. [Image: James Wells Champney, Boon Companions (detail), 1879. Painting.]

Award-winning touring troupe Piti Theatre Company & Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association bring the 6th annual Great Greenfield DinoFest back to town on December 10 & 11. Blending science, arts, and history, DinoFest 2022 features Piti’s local history-inspired movie “Night at the Deerfield Museum,” fossils with experts, a webinar by a budding 10-year-old paleontologist, Dino Improv, and a preview of Piti Theatre’s next improv-based show “Once Upon a . . . Dino.” Events kick off at 11am at the Garden Cinema in Greenfield, MA. Admission is free. More at ptco.org/dino. Questions: info@ptco.org 

Smith Vocational High School in Northampton offers a FREE training program in Culinary Arts to prepare students over 18yo to work in the restaurant industry as entry-level prep cooks or line cooks. Students will also complete a 40-hour paid externship. Possible employment opportunities will exist in area restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes, and other environments where food prep is required. To qualify, students must be unemployed/underemployed, complete all required documentation with Smith Voc Career Center, pass a CORI/SORI test, and be a resident of Western MA. Classes begin January 17 & end June 13, 2023. Open house December 14 from 4-5:30pm. Contact Lorena Turner, Adult Ed Director, for more info 413-587-1414 x3530.

List of Weekly Suggested Events

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Self-Directed Learning: Gingerbread Houses

Is there anything better than the sound of children happily discussing whether gumdrops or gummy bears make for better foliage in a confectionery garden? Grown-up architects debating the merits of Lifesavers vs. melted lollipops to convey gothic stained glass? The hum of conversation and laughter as designers of all ages bring their inspiration and creativity to bear on gingerbread walls, roofing material, and piles of buttercream mortar? – Building a gingerbread house is a fantastic way to include creative folks of all ages in creating a delicious, well-engineered work of art, along with skills in architectural design, engineering, geometry, communication, and collaboration.

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Self-Directed Learning: Christmas Trees

The Christmas tree offers a lens for learning about history, agriculture, botany, cultural heritage, and much more. This time of year, get curious with your kids and explore these topics. Discover how families might have historically decorated a Christmas Tree with candles and cookies at one of our living history museums. Visit a local Christmas tree farm to learn how they are grown while noting the various shapes of the needles of different trees. These are points of entry for using the Christmas tree as your catalyst for learning this holiday season!

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Self-Directed Learning: Wreaths

During the holiday season, locally harvested evergreen branches of evergreens, like balsam and white pine, are often wrapped around lampposts or circled together on front doors, bank lobbies, libraries, and town halls. Where else might you see wreaths? Why wreaths? Why branches of evergreen? Are there other times of the year wreaths might appear? Getting curious, asking questions, and finding answers can guide self-directed learning toward discovering community traditions, symbolism and meaning, history, and arrangement methods. Notice where you see a large wreath display in your community. How did it get there? Is the wreath hanging in your town center or above the grand entrance of a learning institution an annual appearance dating back decades? Want to learn how to make an evergreen wreath? Look for classes and workshops at schools, garden clubs, and even historical museums. Lessons in history, plant botany, and methods of floral arranging are embedded in the process.

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Self-Directed Learning: Generosity & Gratitude

The holiday season is a time of generosity, with gestures of abundance played out through our community landscape. Nature is generous, leaving our open fields and meadows with a plethora of grass and wildflower seeds feeding wildlife in the winter and delivering a promise to summer pollinators. The cultivated land is generous, providing a cornucopia of locally grown food from the late harvest. People are generous, volunteering and spreading kindness during the holiday season. Family and friends are generous, sharing recipes and stories during holiday dinners. And the community is generous, creating a shared history together during annual community meals. During this month, at least two common threads run through these gestures of generosity. The first of which is food! Integrating community engagement opportunities centered around food with curiosity and compassion can help to strengthen our connection to place by being fully present in the moment and open to those with whom we share our lives… and our meals! Read more in our post, November: A Month of Generosity.

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Self-Directed Learning: Music Studies/Gamelan Music

Did you know that Gamelan music is the traditional musical ensemble of the islands of Java and Bali in Indonesia? In the Javanese language, the word “gamelan” means “to strike with a mallet,” If you’ve ever had the chance to hear this amazing music, you’ll know why: the ensemble is made up almost entirely of percussive instruments! According to Indonesian mythology, the gamelan was created thousands of years ago by an ancient king who invented the gong to summon the gods. The impact of this beautiful music has been felt worldwide, and several well-known Western composers were so struck by it that they incorporated gamelan elements into their music.

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Self-Directed Learning: Matryoshka Dolls

The Matryoshka, or nesting doll, is a distinctly Russian handicraft. Incorrectly referred to as “babushka dolls,” matryoshka were first created by Russian craftsmen in the late 19th century and often portray characters from Russian folklore or Soviet history. It is unknown where the inspiration for the doll originally came from, though the first matryoshka artists were heavily influenced by traditional crafts and dolls from China and Japan. For example, the Japanese Seven Lucky Gods nesting doll may be an early instance of the matryoshka. 

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Self-Directed Learning: Language Art/Emily Dickinson

Born December 10, 1830, this Dec 10 is Emily Dickinson’s birthday. By the time Emily Dickinson turned 35 that year, she had produced nearly 2,000 poems we know today. By the time Emily Dickinson turned 35 that year, she had produced nearly 2,000 poems we know today. When you visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA, you’ll step into the creative space of one of America’s greatest poets. The Museum includes the Homestead, where Emily Dickinson was born and lived most of her life; The Evergreens, home of the poet’s brother and his family; and three acres of the original Dickinson property in the center of Amherst, MA. While Dickinson wrote most of her poems in her upstairs bedroom, these environments deeply inspired her work. Poems like “Bee, I’m expecting you!” reflect Dickinson’s love of nature. The flowers, birds, animals, and insects that shared her Amherst surroundings were the source of many of her poems, a great way to connect via language arts and the seasons of Western MA.

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Weekly eNewsletter

Online and in-person events and resources shared above are done so as a courtesy and not as an endorsement. While we do our best to share accurate and up-to-date information, please take the time to confirm information, age appropriateness, registration requirements, safety protocols, and associated costs.

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Hilltown Families’ list of Suggested Events is supported in part by grants from the Agawam, Amherst, Becket, Bernardston, Buckland, Chester, Chicopee, Colrain, Cummington, Easthampton, Goshen, Granby, Greenfield, Hadley, Hatfield, Heath, Hinsdale/Peru, Huntington, Leyden, Montgomery, Mount Washington, Northern Berkshire, Orange, Otis, Palmer, Pelham, Rowe, Shelburne, Shutesbury, South Hadley, Tolland, Tyringham, Westhampton, Windsor, and Worthington Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.