Locals know that the winter holiday season is officially underway when the Reformed Church of New Paltz hosts its annual Holiday on Huguenot Street and Christmas Fair, which returned last weekend. Some elements of this year’s celebration were familiar, while others were relatively new.
The Soup on the Stoop event on Friday evening — during which attendees can choose from among a variety of homebrewed hot soups while listening to a choir sing carols on the front steps of the church building – is an ever-popular draw. Suggested donations go to support the Washburn House domestic violence shelter, but no one is turned away for having no money. The soupfest is traditionally followed by a rousing swing concert inside the church courtesy of the Big Blue Big Band, admission free to all.
“Last night’s Soup on the Stoop was in the rain, but we had a good turnout,” event organizer Karyn Morehouse said when HV1 caught up with her on Saturday. She showed us around the various activities going on inside the Wullschleger Education Building, upstairs from where the Twice Blessed Thrift Shop was open for extended hours. For $20, families could select an unstuffed animal from the Zoo Factory, stuff it with cotton batting and an Angel Bear, on which you make a wish and seal it with a kiss. Then you close the Velcro opening, write the Build-a-Pet’s name on a birth certificate and take it home, knowing that your donation is helping to support the church’s education program. “The unicorn and Pegasus have been really popular today,” Morehouse noted.
Also helping to fund the education program was the cookie-decorating activity at $2 a pop, offering your choice of blank gingerbread or sugar cookies, assorted colors of icing and types of sprinkles. At the Adopt-a-Snowman table, you could buy vintage snowperson figurines, with the purchase price going toward Family of New Paltz.
An entire room, themed Christmas Past, was dedicated entirely to sales of antique and gently used holiday baubles and décor, cards, candles and cookbooks. The hallway was lined with racks of beautifully handmade evergreen wreaths adorned with ribbon, lace, pinecones or sprigs of dried flowers or grasses. Two sizes of potted poinsettias, handmade topiaries and table centerpieces were available for sale. The Dollar Tree was hung with sparkly ornaments made from repurposed materials: a bargain at $1 apiece.
In years past, the Education Building’s large-but-cozy Fireside Room was dominated by a cluster of Christmas trees — as many as a dozen. Each would be “adopted” by a volunteer who would give it a theme and make or gather ornaments to hang on it for sale. This year, only two parishioners were available to take on that responsibility. The Woodland Tree was festooned with adorable felt animal sculptures and the Vintage Tree with 19th-century-styled ornaments, some crocheted or beaded, including hats, shoes and china doll heads.
That left ample room in the Fireside Room for a fresh approach to the Christmas Fair: a silent auction and a bigger array of indoor vendor tables, featuring many of the regulars who set up booths lining Huguenot Street at the church’s annual Earth Day Fair and Applestock festival. One of the mainstays of all these events is parishioner Judy Elliot, much of whose Autumn Whimsy Hudson Valley Jam and Jelly line is made from fruits she grows or gathers herself.
Nearby sat a newer vendor of comestibles: Mark Carson, who works at the Poughkeepsie-based Zeus Brewing Company – the craft beer supplier of choice for the church’s outdoor festivals – and makes Hot Boi sauces in his spare time. While the company motto is “Pain is temporary; Hot Boi is forever,” the product line includes half a dozen different hot sauces in varying categories on the Scoville Scale for pepper heat. (The smoky version got our enthusiastic thumbs-up.)
The Reformed Church congregation includes a formidable knitting circle, so it comes as no surprise that many of these crafts displays were strewn with luscious handmade knitwear. Knit n’ Knibble’s table was piled with hats, gloves, wine cozies, potholders, long boa scarves in a vivid shade of purple and a throw pillow and matching afghan in rustic autumnal colors. At Virginia’s Knits, featuring the handiworks of Bernadette Tarella, this year’s hot item was fingerless gloves and mittens, designed for using electronic devices on a freezing day. “That’s why she makes them,” said Tarella’s husband, Rob Lee. “Everybody’s outside and texting at the same time.”
Most impressive of all from an artistic standpoint was the knitwear created by Karla McGuigan, who was invited to the Reformed Church Christmas Fair by a colleague who’s a member of the Big Blue Big Band. Among the specialties of Karla’s Knitting were ponytail clasps made from banana fiber and repurposed saris and other textiles from Nepal and India. Most of her table was arrayed with stunning one-of-a-kind scarves, some with handwarmer pockets at the ends. “I take inspiration from art,” McGuigan said, pointing out several scarves with color combinations from Impressionist watercolors and another featuring a cat from a medieval tapestry. Other designs evoked the shades of the woodlands and sunset skies of her home in the Catskills.
Other vendors sold jewelry, Rada cutlery, handmade cookies and candies, baby bibs and burp cloths made from bandanas. The marketplace atmosphere was festive, and when visitors needed a break from shopping, they could enjoy hot coffee, tea or cocoa in the comfy seating area in front of the working hearth that gives the Fireside Room its name. It was like having an old-fashioned European Christmas fair in your living room – except that a crew of dedicated volunteers was doing all the organizing, setup and cleanup work. This is a church congregation that knows how to throw a fundraising festival, for sure.
Join the family! 
