Merry Victorian Christmas

What's that, you say? Isn't there some giant event associated with my town that happens around now?

Why, yes, there is. Victorian Christmas, which is one of Bellefonte's more major tourism events, happens the 2nd week of December each year. I attended a small part of it last year, which was a somewhat thwarted event due to really awful ice storms. Seriously, I live down the street from one of the craft fair venues, and I could hardly walk there -- I can't even imagine how someone from further afield could manage a visit.

So, this year I actually got to participate to some degree in the festivities. Specifically, I made it to a portion of the craft fair and the house tour. I meant to attend caroling, which last year was a lot of fun despite the weather, but schedules did not permit it.

First impressions:

1. The craft fair is pretty awesome. No, it's not "special" in the sense that it's not a place where you'll find a lot of high-style goods. But there are many, many wonderful small-scale crafts for sale. I particularly enjoyed buying a lot of locally-produced food, including some jam from The Piper's Peck and some awesome organic hand-milled soaps. Just generally: yum. I also saw some nice jewelry and a lot of textile art. Good stuff -- oh, and I only made it to one venue, so I only saw a small sampling of the available options.

2. The victorian house tour is, well, um...I would have preferred some tweaks. First, it's crucial that I note that of the 8 or so houses, 3 of them were worth the price of admission by themselves. The Reynolds Mansion is gorgeous and amazing, The Monsell home was every bit as well-situated as I would have imagined (having looked up at it while stuck in traffic at the light for months now), and the Forge House was not only amazing but very well interpreted. However, there was a ca. 1970 home on the tour (which is, um, not victorian) and there were several homes which were not particularly exemplary but seemed to be included as part of a sales strategy on the part of a local realtor. Note: It's kind of a cool idea to have an open house during Victorian Christmas. What's not cool is pretending that these open houses are part of a house tour which I would imagine most of us are undertaking because we want to see great architecture or learn about local history.

3. While I didn't get to participate, the horse buggy tours appeared to be a ton of fun.

Oh, most importantly, Victorian Christmas is put on by a large host of volunteers. And as far as I could tell it was a ton of fun, and very well executed.