For over 40 years, the first full weekend in Sandwich has been a celebration of craftsmanship. This year is no exception. Over 40 artisans, farmers, bakers, craftspeople, individuals, businesses, and organizations are each doing something in the spirit of community and the holidays. December 6, 7 and 8 will feature a tree-lighting, live entertainment, food, local hand-made gifts, gift wrapping, fund-raisers for youth, live animals, and so much more. Combined efforts will mean a weekend of fun and festivities for all who come to enjoy.

New artisans this year are two enterprising teens who will be selling their handmade items at the Benz Center on Saturday, Dec 7 from 9 am to 4 pm. Laura Cove and Hazel Dassori-Kaye have been mentored for the past year by Wendy Shambaugh, a Sandwich Business Group member with two local businesses, Wayside Farm and The Dessert Table. Wendy has been teaching the girls how to sew and also how to sell their products.

Wendy says, “Laura’s & Hazel’s moms were looking for someone to teach them sewing a year or so ago, as they both had starter sewing machines at that time. I love working with young people, encouraging them to be creative and experiment with different mediums, so it was a good fit. I worked with them making pillows, ornaments, and clothes for themselves and for dolls, teaching them as we went about proper techniques to end up with a quality product.
 
They both are very creative and extremely fast learners. Laura loves to design clothes for herself. Hazel started making different styles of bags she developed, with ideas from Marcy Greene of Greene Studios. I suggested that they join the Christmas fair and they were very eager. We have worked on how to set up a budget for materials, setting pricing, advertising their work, displaying their work on a table, interacting with customers, and totaling and make change for orders.”

Make sure to check out Laura and Hazel’s table when you visit the Benz Center this Saturday.

Christmas in the Village is a great chance to BUY LOCAL. It’s a great chance to BE LOCAL! There have always been good reasons to buy from your friends and neighbors instead of big box stores selling goods made in China.

Supporting our local communities, supporting local sustainable economic systems, is a win-win. We all win. We keep our money in local circulation, we help to increase the vibrancy of the town we live in, and we help to make the world a better place with less waste and more caring.

Christmas in the Village maps and events listings will be available around town and information (and photos) can be found on Facebook at Christmas in the Village–Sandwich, NH and on this website.

Sandwich author, Lisa Gruenberg , will be at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery on October 5th to sign and read excerpts from her new book, My City of Dreams. Join us for a reception to meet the author at 4 p.m.  In her book Lisa Gruenberg not only records her own life but also that of her father who survived the Holocaust in Vienna and slowly made his way to the United States via the UK and Canada.   Gruenberg’s story includes the tales of relatives lost to “darkness, terror and murder.” Her adventure begins and ends in Center Sandwich.   Gruenberg’s journey combines exploration with imagination as she attempts to relive her father’s Holocaust experience and through him the stories of her many relatives.

 Joseph S. Nye, Jr. University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Harvard Kennedy School and author of Do Morals Matter?  Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, writes “ This beautifully written book takes you from America to Vienna and back as it explores the meaning of the Holocaust, memory, mortality and life.  

The book will be available at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery through Columbus Day, October 14.  Gallery hours are from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday and 12 to 5 Sunday and Monday.  For more information please call 603 284 7728 or visit our website at www.patricialaddcarega.com.

The Sandwich Business Group is once again sponsoring a house tour on August 17 to benefit the Sandwich Central School’s 6th grade class trip to Washington DC. Five great locations are on the tour this year. In the village visit:

36 Church Street – The David H. Hill House, a classic New England village house with attached shed and small barn built in 1854.

7 Maple Street – The Ezra Gould House, another classic New England village house built on Maple Street which was referred to by locals as Quaker Lane.

21 Main Street – the Masonic Lodge, known as the smallest lodge in the state.

While you’re in the village be sure to visit the Sandwich Historical Society and their Transportation Museum. Then venture up to 317 Wentworth Hill Road – the Brick Store built in 1845 which over the years housed a Post Office, law office, court room, newspaper, and jewelry making; and back by popular demand: 284 Wentworth Hill Road – Isaac Adams Homestead (formerly Chestnut Manor) and its collection of outbuildings.

You may start at any of the locations to purchase your ticket; $10 per person is the suggested donation. The tour runs from 10:00 – 3:00 and parking is available at 284 Wentworth Hill Road and at town hall for the village locations. Food and beverage are available at the Village Café. The Sandwich Home Industries features beautiful hand-crafted items, and the Samuel H. Wentworth Library is a treat with its barrel vaulted ceiling.

The Sandwich Business Group is a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 to facilitate affordable collaborative advertising and marketing projects for businesses located in Sandwich, New Hampshire. Some of our businesses cater to visitors, some to residents, and many to both. Promoting the economic and social vitality of our town is a benefit to everyone who cares about Sandwich. To learn more about SBG visit this page.

Join others at the historic North Sandwich Friends (Quakers) Meetinghouse on Sunday, August 11 at 10:30 a.m. for a special programmed Meeting with Emily Provance.  Ms. Provance is a member of the Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting in New York City working with a variety of Quaker institutions.  She evaluates where the systems and practices of the Society of Friends are supporting God's purposes and where those systems and practices might be getting in the way, across the covenant people called the Religious Society of Friends.  She is an associate of Good News Associates, a nonprofit Christian ministry organization supporting individuals who are called to non-institutional ministries.  

The North Sandwich Friends Meeting is socially and politically inclusive.  The principles of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship of the Earth are basic to our faith.  If you are a first-time visitor, you can pick up a welcoming brochure at the door.  Our historic Meetinghouse is up the hill from the Durgin Covered Bridge (354 Quaker Whiteface Road in North Sandwich.) We gather every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and during these busy summer months we open the Meetinghouse for a mid-week un-programmed silent gathering on Wednesdays at 7 p.m..  For further information contact Luisa Facciolo at 603-284-6843.

Advice To The Players, Sandwich’s Own Shakespeare company, is proud to present their Summer Mainstage Production of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, August 1 - 11, in Quimby Park and in The Sandwich Town Hall Theater.

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is a commentary on the trifecta of power, sex, and morality: centering around the fate of a pious sister forced into a difficult situation, a moralistic leader who does not walk the talk he preaches, and a Duke in disguise. Trickery abounds and hard issues are tackled in this lesser-known of Shakespeare’s ‘comedies.’

The production will star new and familiar ATTP actors, including company founder Caroline Nesbitt, Luke Haskell, Ellie Bartz, and introducing Jake Berger, Salvatore Constantino, Alicia Edgar, Pauline de Gourcuff, and Alexei du Perier. The production will be directed by ATTP’s former Artistic Director Andrew Codispoti. It is a very timely production for the ‘me too’ era that you don’t want to miss!

Tickets are available online at www.advicetotheplayers.org or by calling 603-284-7115. Adult, Senior and Student tickets are available. Preview performance in Quimby Park at 5:30 pm on August 1st is $10 for all tickets. There will also be a special free performance at Eagle Square in Concord, August 9th at 5:30 pm.

Additional Performances at Quimby Park are August 2nd, 4th, 7th, 10th & 11th at 5:30 pm: at the Sandwich Town Hall Theatre August 3rd at 7:30 pm and August 8th at 2 pm. ATTP’s 20th Anniversary Gala will follow the August 4th Performance— tickets can be purchased individually to both events or you can buy a package. August 10th you can treat yourself to a double feature and bring a picnic to Measure for Measure and then head inside Town Hall to see the Yeoman’s Fund production of Elderville. In the case of rain, all Quimby Park dates will move inside to the Sandwich Town Hall Theater. 

Advice To The Players is a unique company of theater professionals, enthusiastic community members and energetic teens that have been performing Shakespeare and offering workshops in New Hampshire’s Lakes and Mountains Region since 1999. Based in Sandwich, NH, ATTP has spent the last 20 years bringing award-winning productions of William Shakespeare’s richly passionate plays to life while introducing new generations to live theater.

Elderville, an “almost entirely new” operetta by Ellen Farnum, offers a rollicking, humorous take on aging. The setting is a Brigadoon-like place where, if you wander in and don’t leave, you quickly age to 82. After that, you stay 82 forever and life is idyllic: the soup is never too hot, there’s always a bathroom nearby, and there’s time for a nap every day. While finding humor in aging, Elderville also celebrates the delights of being free from the pressures of youth and work and the joy of having time to relax and follow one’s passions.

When two young professionals mistakenly walk in and lose their cell phone connection, they’re invited to join this community of contented senior citizens. This celebration of age is expressed by the actors, singers, and dancers, all of whom qualify for the senior discount with the exception of the two youthful leads, Ashley Bullard and Michael Kaye. They face a difficult decision: will they stay or will they leave?

The music is adapted from the scores of Gilbert & Sullivan’s tuneful operettas, but with timely new words by Ellen Farnum: the famous “We’ve got them on a list” chorus from The Mikado, for example, lists “the telemarketer who likes to call your house at ten” and “the folks who start the Christmas season way before its time” as among those who will “not be missed.”

Elderville also celebrates Sandwich history and tradition by offering a lively summer musical on the stage of the Sandwich Town Hall. From 1953 until 2000, these summer musicals — often Gilbert & Sullivan operettas —featured local citizens. Elderville also honors the memory of Bob Bates, who directed Sandwich musicals for decades and whose inspiration changed forever the experience of music for the citizens of Sandwich and nearby towns. Since Bob shuffled off this mortal coil in 2000 (his words!), Sandwich Players and Advice to the Players have continued to mount productions on the Sandwich stage, but this is the first musical in years, and certainly the first of its kind.

At least half of the 2019 cast and crew have connections to those historic Sandwich musicals. As a child, Heather Hamilton played under the grand piano while her mother Ellen Farnum was rehearsing; now, as Professor of Theater and Dance at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Dr. Hamilton returns as the new operetta’s Director.

Cast member Jean Knox remembers watching her mother on stage and thinking “This must be what Broadway is like!” Later she understood that the exuberant Sandwich productions had an enthusiasm and energy she missed in more professional productions. Many other cast members bring warm memories of past performances to this new endeavor. Some chorus members have been recruited from the Sandwich Singers and the Silver Lake Singers.

The Music Director is Peggy Johnson, whose children shared space with Heather under the grand piano; Assistant Directors are Mary Edes and Ellen Farnum.

The world premier of Elderville is sponsored by the Yeoman’s Fund for the Arts, which “promotes and funds programs and events that strengthen the bonds of community by reaching a broad range of area residents across the generations, exposing them to artistic excellence, involving them in the creative process, and leading them to lives of greater creativity, self-expression and joy.” Elderville promises to do all that and more!

Elderville, in one act and about an hour long, will be presented at the Sandwich Town Hall during Old Home Week for three evenings only: August 8, 9, and 10 at 7:30 p.m. Seating is limited, and admission is by donation. To reserve tickets E-MAIL eldervilleshow@gmail.com with your request. Tickets must be picked up by 7:15, after which they will be released to those on the waiting list and to walk-ins.

For more information, e-mail eldervilleshow@gmail.com or contact Ann or
David Wilkins at 603-367-8222

Tappan Chairs are a New Hampshire ladder-back design first crafted in Sandwich, NH in the early 1800’s, and they continue to be crafted in Sandwich to this day, over seven generations of makers, using a medley of modern and historic machinery dating as far back as the 1850’s.

Adam Nudd-Homeyer is the current owner, making him the seventh generation in Tappan Chairs’ line of craftsperson-stewards. It is under Adam’s tenure that Tappan Chairs now celebrate their 200th anniversary--a celebration which had an early start in 2018, with Tappan Chairs’ move into the former, historic, and long vacant Sandwich General Store building, turning it into an open workshop, showroom, and history exhibit, and marking the first time in the business’ long history that it has had its own free-standing building.

Adam Nudd-Homeyer writes:

We welcome you to stop by and visit our shop on August 3 (Saturday), from 10 am - 1 pm as we formally celebrate our bicentennial in Sandwich! We'll have some cake and light refreshments to share, and one or more state "dignitaries" will also be present! We will also be making some exciting announcements...

1. Firstly, we'll be unveiling the first of a "200th year only" style of commemorate rocker (of course!)...

2. We'll be revealing the details on our acquisition of TWO national furniture brands--something that we have been working on for nearly a year, and which is finally happening now(!)--and which we expect to bring a half dozen or more skilled jobs to Sandwich over the next year or so...

3. Finally, we will be announcing our transition in the coming months from an LLC to a benefit corporation, with its core purpose being the support of non-profits which benefit Sandwich and its greater community!

So please save the date and stop on by! If you've never been in our new shop at the old Sandwich General Store (Skinner St./Upper Main St. in Center Sandwich), or haven't been in for awhile, we've added a number of new things to see and learn about for both the business as well as the two historic buildings that we now occupy. And of course, we'll be on hand to give the full scoop on all of these exciting developments...

Please join us—we hope to see you there!
Adam
(603) 726-6550, www.tappanchairs.com

Friends of the Samuel Wentworth Library are pleased to present local author Mj Pettengill, discussing her recent book, The Angels' Lament, in the Community Room of the library in Center Sandwich on Tuesday, July 23, at 4:00 pm. This event, free and open to the public, also features light refreshments. Autographed books will be available for purchase.

The Angels' Lament is Book Two in the Etched in Granite Historical Fiction Series.
For the Hodgdon women, 1872 is a year of reckoning. Alone and determined, 17-year-old Sarah Hodgdon boards a train, trading farm life in New Hampshire for the textile mills of Fall River. Woefully disillusioned, she finds herself trapped in a brutal factory and living in a filthy tenement.

She is tormented when she learns the fate of her family.  Returning home is no longer possible. About to drown in a sea of spindles, she meets lamplighter, August Wood, who illuminates the gap between the affluent and the undesirables that dwell in the murky shadows.

Stripped down to her bare instincts, she retreats into a secret world, that if revealed, would shatter all that remains. Everything collides when Bess, the captivating woman across town, emerges, navigating the dense world of the local elite, offering a glimpse into an era when women were beginning to take the stage. Survival, a resilient thread of music, interweaves their compelling stories, binding them together, unveiling grievous misdeeds from the past.

Mj Pettengill is an author and social historian with a focus on cultural narrative and traditions, collective and intergenerational trauma integration, ancestral healing, and social welfare development.

She is a cellist and has a background in Civil War Musicology and trumpet performance. Before transitioning to the world of writing, she performed as a soloist and with various musical organizations featured in numerous Living Histories, Reenactments, and Historical Events throughout the Northeast.

Mj works and creates in her woodland studio and lives on a farm in North Sandwich, New Hampshire. In addition to writing and music, she is a wildcraft herbalist, aligned with her passion for nature and the ancient healing traditions, customs, and folklore of her ancestors.

Jenn Elliot writes: Please join the Sandwich Friends and Fiber Group, this Saturday June 8, 11am - 1pm, as they join thousands of other knitters around the world all gathered to knit in public. The group will be outside the Sandwich Home Industries, on the grass or under the the porch is case of rain at 32 Main Street, on the Green Center Sandwich, NH.

Bring your knitting, finished items for show and tell, and lawn chair. Crocheters, spinners and fiber artists of all kinds are welcome to join in. Or just stop by to meet and greet us and see our knitting. Bring your own snacks or swing by the Village Cafe for coffee and a pastry or sandwich.  Many thanks to Martha Nichols, manager of SHI for graciously hosting us. 

WKIPDAY is unique in that it’s the largest knitter-run event in the world.  Each local event is put together by a volunteer or a group of volunteers.  For more on World Wide Knit in Public Day, see http://www.wwkipday.com/

"Better living through stitching together"

Why was Pablo Picasso so inspired by printmaking that he bought his own etching press? Many other artists, including Rembrandt, Matisse, and Winslow Homer, have used printmaking to express their artistic visions. Learn the characteristics of hand-pulled prints and why they have captured the interest of so many famous artists. On March 24th, Peggy Merritt, a Sandwich printmaker, will talk about her craft at the Benz Center in Sandwich.  

Peggy will describe various printmaking techniques, including etching and lithography, using images from well-known artists and from her own work. The audience will have an opportunity to examine these prints closely, as well the plates and tools used to produce them. She will also talk about current practices and modern materials that reduce hazards in the printmakers’ studio and increase the breadth of artistic expression.

“I love to express my imagination in hands-on work,” says Peggy. “The technical details of printmaking also appeal to my background as a chemist.”  She hopes that her talk will remove some of the mysteries about her chosen medium.

The printmaking talk takes place on Sunday afternoon, March 24th, at 4 o’clock at the Benz Center on Heard Road in Center Sandwich. It is part of a series of free Sunday afternoon seminars offered this winter and spring by the Sandwich Home Industries. The final talk in this series is scheduled for April 14 when Rebecca Goodale will talk about art books, including her “Illuminated Autobiography.”