For over 40 years, a two-day holiday fair and sale has magically appeared across the town of Sandwich on the first weekend in December. This year’s Christmas in the Village features 19 locations with over 40 participants, selling a wide variety of crafts, fine art, gifts, goodies, and holiday ornaments, greens and décor. 
You’ll find the holiday spirit everywhere with with many venues offering hand-crafted ornaments and holiday décor. 

Your Neighbors Flowers and Something Wild Farm is a collaboration between two North Sandwich Farms offering local and sustainably harvested spruce and fir Christmas Trees, table top trees, wreaths and other handmade gifts Saturday 12/3 & Sunday 12/4 9am to 2pm on both sides of the Green in Center Sandwich.

Pam Urda will have beautiful evergreen wreaths and centerpieces at Wayside Farm, Amy Brown will have holiday wreaths, kissing balls, centerpieces and ornaments at the Doris Benz Center, and Shirly Glines will show fresh holiday arrangements at the Sandwich Home Industries.

Craftspeople and makers will set up in small groups at various locations.  At Partridge Hill Farm, you’ll find four vendors in a spectacular barn, open only on Saturday 10am - 2pm only. Rachel Bartlett will have her hand thrown, high fired, functional pottery, glazed to reflect colors of the natural world. Macrame Christmas ornaments, winter paintings, & gnomes are available from Jodi with an Eye. Vicky Dworkin will bring her Fabrications:  fabric collage landscapes of local scenes; as well as table top Christmas arrangements from recycled and vintage materials. Laser Focused Designs & Gifts will have unique gifts ranging from charcuterie boards, earrings coasters, holiday ornaments & more. Custom orders are available to make your gifts more personalized.

​The Doris Benz Community Center will be open Saturday only 9 am- 4 pm, Little Apiary on the Hillside will have local raw honey, beeswax candles, honey based soaps, lotion bars & lip balm, as well as handmade patchwork quilts. You’ll also find hand-dyed napkins, dish towels & clothing, hand carved block printed, silkscreen and real leaves from Robin Cornwall and original photo card of flowers, animals and local landscapes by Jessica Kelly. 

Thank you so much to those who came out to support live demonstrations of traditional skills, and the summer opening of the Sandwich Historical Society! We enjoyed your presence and participation. —Franz Nicolay, Programs & Education Committee.
​All photos are by Charlene Oulette, except where otherwise noted.

July 9th through July 26th. Local artist, Wendy Ketchum, has created an intriguing series of woodcut monoprints based on 19th century New England textile mills.  Her exhibit will open at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery on July 9.   

The series was inspired by her love of history, 19th century photographs and the “many long rows of massive brick buildings” that dot the New England landscape.  Her meticulous technique combines with her subject matter in a series of poignant pictures relating to the history of the “Mill Girls.” The work is inspired by old photographs of mill workers, as well as actual patterns made from fabrics created at the mills.

Join us for a reception to meet the artist on Saturday, July 9th from 5 to 7 pm.   Ketchum will also host a “conversation” about the “Mill Girls” and their place in our history on Saturday, July 16 at 9:30 am. 
 
Ketchum’s artist statement best describes The Mill, a project that has taken her several years to complete:  “In the years between 1830 and 1860 tens of thousands of young single women were recruited to leave their family farms in northern New England to seek social and economic independence through employment in the textile mills. Despite the yoke of corporate paternalism, millwork put a new kind of power into women’s hands economically, providing them with the highest wages offered to female employees anywhere in the US at the time.

Coming from farms where time was dependent on the seasons, the “mill girls,” as they were called, were faced with the tyranny of the bell and clock tower dictating every minute of their working day. The cotton that fed the mills was grown and processed by slave labor in the American South, and a portion of it was woven by mill girls into coarse cloth to clothe those very slaves creating a closed circle of labor. Many of the mill girls became ardent abolitionists, in addition to becoming labor reform activists fighting for better working conditions through walkouts, mass rallies, strikes, and the creation of one of the first labor reform leagues in the country. 
 
The exhibit will be on view through July 26th. The gallery is located at 69 Maple Street in Center Sandwich.  Gallery hours are from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday.  Sunday and Monday, if the door is open, come on in. www.patricialaddcaregagallery.com, 603 284-7728 ​