Yankee Magazine November/December 2020

By

Lukens Noonan

Welcome to the jelly-bellied, white-bearded brotherhood of the New England Santa Society. By Nina

MacLaughlin

The 400th anniversary of the Mayflower ’s landing finds Plimoth Plantation—and all Americans—wrestling with a complicated history.

By Justin Shatwell

DANA SMITH

Kris Kringles don’t come much cooler than Steve Hendrix of Massachusetts.

Photograph and styling by Kennebunk, Maine–based creators and influencers Jackie Greaney (@jackiegreaney) and Paul Havel (@pjhavel).

home

30 /// The 12 Doors of Christmas

Connecticut photographer Deb Cohen, whose images of historic homes have made her an Instagram hit, shares a dozen favorite facades to get us into the holiday spirit. By

Annie Graves

40 /// Open Studio

Maine native Abigail Halpin’s brilliantly colored illustrations bring children’s storybooks to life.

By Annie Graves

50 /// A New New England Thanksgiving

From molasses in the turkey brine and cider in the glaze, to Marshmallow Fluff in the pumpkin pie, this collection of modern recipes uses classic regional flavors to reimagine the holiday menu.

By Amy Traverso

67 /// The 2020 Yankee Food Awards

We celebrate the makers of iconic New England foods—whoopie pies, cider doughnuts, lobster rolls, and more—that deliver right to your door.

By Amy Traverso with Aimee Tucker and Katherine Keenan

travel

76 /// Weekend Away

The storied summer island of Nantucket warms to the off-season with ocean views, crowd-free shopping, and one very special holiday weekend.

By Joe Bills

90 /// The Best 5

When it comes to fresh-cut evergreens, locally made gifts, and a sleigh-load of holiday memories, these Christmas tree farms are at the top of our “nice” list. By Kim Knox Beckius Plus: Picks for great cut-your-own tree farms in every New England state.

10

DEAR YANKEE, CONTRIBUTORS & POETRY BY D.A.W.

12

INSIDE YANKEE

14

FIRST PERSON

Finding meaning in the pealing of small-town church bells. By Kate Whouley

16

FIRST LIGHT

A former Black Nativity cast member reconnects with the soul of this Boston tradition. By

Grace Aldrich

22

5 QUESTIONS WITH...

We catch up with Diann Roffe, Olympic ski racer and Weekends with Yankee guest.

26

KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM

A classic Thanksgiving poem from the archives, plus sage words from food wiz J. Kenji López-Alt.

28

UP CLOSE

The Nubble gets decked out for the season. By Mel Allen

144

LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

On the cusp of winter: a time for slowing down and taking stock of the important things. By Ben Hewitt

JENNIFER BAKOS (PORTRAIT); JOE ST. PIERRE (FOOD); ELIZABETH CECIL (HARBOR)

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EDITORIAL

Editor Mel Allen

Managing Editor Jenn Johnson

Senior Features Editor Ian Aldrich

Senior Food Editor Amy Traverso

Home & Garden Editor Annie Graves

Associate Editor Joe Bills

Senior Digital Editor Aimee Tucker

Associate Digital Editor Katherine Keenan

Contributing Editors Kim Knox Beckius, Sara Anne Donnelly, Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Nina MacLaughlin

ART

Art Director Katharine Van Itallie

Photo Editor Heather Marcus

Contributing Photographers Adam DeTour, Megan Haley, Corey Hendrickson, Michael Piazza, Greta Rybus

PRODUCTION

Director David Ziarnowski

Manager Brian Johnson

Senior Artists Jennifer Freeman, Susan Shute

DIGITAL

Vice President Paul Belliveau Jr.

Designer Amy O’Brien

Marketing Specialist Holly Sanderson

Email Marketing Specialist Samantha Caveny

CORPORATE STAFF

Credit Manager Bill Price

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Accounting Coordinator Meg Hart-Smith

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CALM AND BRIGHT

A curated look at New England featuring standout shots from our Instagram community.

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WEB EXTRA! Q&A WITH JOY HOWARD

Ever wonder how Yankee gets its recipes to look so delicious in photographs? It’s easy when you have a pro like Joy Howard, the food stylist for this issue’s Thanksgiving feature and Food Awards. Learn more about how she does it, as she shares holiday entertaining and styling tips at newengland.com/joyhoward

Barry McMenimon (@mcmenimon) Duxbury, Massachusetts

Jaidon Lalor (@jaidonlalor) Stratton Mountain, Vermont

Marissa Ashcraft (@onecrafdiygirl) Amherst, New Hampshire

Sandy Wakeman (@sandy_wakeman) Port Clyde, Maine

The New England Shop has holiday gifts for your favorite Yankee!

Go to NewEngland.com/store to place your order now!

My New England

Yankee’s My New England 2021 Wall Calendar

It’s classic New England at its best!

With its historic lighthouses, coastal views, picturesque country barns, and colorful foliage, New England is a region of great beauty and charm. Go from season to season and place to place in New England with this delightful wall calendar.

The Apple Lover’s Cookbook

The Apple Lover’s Cookbook is a celebration of apples in all their wonderful diversity!

Written by Yankee senior food editor Amy Traverso, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook brings you more than 100 scrumptious, easy-to-make apple recipes for your holiday season. This award-winning cookbook also contains an illustrated guide to 70 popular apple varieties, tips on the best times and places to buy apples, and more. Find your favorite new apple recipe with The Apple Lover’s Cookbook !

Yankee’s New England Adventures:

Over 400 Essential Things to See and Do

Yankee editors share local secrets, out-of-the-way places, and unique experiences!

Yankee’s New England Adventures is your go-to source for planning a New England getaway, enhanced by stunning photos and the same knowhow Yankee brings to you all year long. Whether you’re interested in exploring tiny villages or big cities, wandering through art museums or along wooded trails, this is the guide for you.

OUR READERS RESPOND

Hat Tip from Texas

MEG LUKENS NOONAN

A veteran freelance journalist who has written for Travel & Leisure and The New York Times, among others, Noonan says she was ready for a dose of holiday spirit when she got her Yankee assignment [“Christmas on the Maine Coast,” p. 98]. And Kennebunkport’s Christmas Prelude delivered the goods: “I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to banish the bah-humbugs,” she says.

S É AN ALONZO HARRIS

In his 25 years as a professional photographer, Harris has captured images featured in a wide range of publications, ad campaigns, and exhibitions. Describing the work that inspired the photo essay “Invisible No More” [p. 110], he calls it “a proclamation of radical inclusivity, an invitation to see differently, and transform our images and perceptions of others.”

NICOLE WOLF

Having grown up on Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy, Wolf says photographing “Christmas on the Maine Coast” [p. 98] brought back wonderful memories: “There’s something so nostalgic about smelling the salt air as you hang lights on your tree.” Now based in Portland, she worked as a relief journalist and humanitarian in Haiti for seven years, and started her own foundation, Up from Under.

JUSTIN SHATWELL

When Shatwell began reporting his article on the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing, Covid-19 had yet to reach our shores. The result [“Do the Pilgrims Still Matter?” p. 128] “became a meditation on the perils of celebrating history when modern events get in the way,” says Shatwell, a Western Massachusetts resident who designs multimedia exhibits for museums around the country.

JOY HOWARD

“Dessert is a bit controversial at my family’s Thanksgiving table—we’re split down the middle between pumpkin and sweet potato,” says this freelance food stylist, who nonetheless is eager to make the pumpkin pie from “The New New England Thanksgiving” [p. 50]. Howard, who also styled our annual Food Awards [p. 67], is a regular columnist for EatingWell and the author of two cookbooks.

NINA MACLAUGHLIN

Though she wasn’t sure what to expect at the annual gathering of the New England Santa Society [“When Santas Get Together,” p. 122], “it turned out to be surreal, funny, joyful, and deeply, unexpectedly moving.” A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, MacLaughlin is the author of three books, including the 2015 memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter.

You probably can’t get much more Southern among your subscribers than I: born in Mississippi, reared in Louisiana, schooled in Tennessee, matured in South Carolina, and now retired to Texas. Still, I must admit that your fall foliage issue [September/October] worked its same old warming potion of nostalgia, yearning, melancholia, and irreplaceable reminiscence as it always has over the years. The entire issue is another keeper, with all the old familiar highways and byways still in place and—to be downright trite about it—working their magic monopoly on autumn. Thank you!

Tom Parks Midland, Texas

Unbroken Links

I grew up among Massachusetts pines just a stone’s throw from a chain of cranberry bogs, but a third and equally vivid fixture of this New England childhood was rainy afternoons with Yankee. I have fond memories of sitting on my living room floor, thumbing through back issues, which 8-year-old me read for the pictures.

Now, two decades later, a few things have changed: I live in Pennsylvania, I get my cranberries at the grocery store (they’ll never match up to the pilfered handfuls from childhood), and I read Yankee for more than just the photos, lovely as they are. There are days (more, recently) when I do not know how to visualize the America I hope exists somewhere—then one of your issues arrives, and I have an inkling again. Thank you for reminding us of the best of ourselves, and for being a consistent voice of tenacity and hope during this uncertain moment in history.

Kaylee J. Schofield

Bainbridge, Pennsylvania

Shedding a Little Light

As a Canadian Maritimer with a deep and abiding connection to Quincy,

THANKSGIVING DEMOCRACY

We each get one vote with the TV remote for the programs we watch in a daze. But Grandma’s the boss of the cranberry sauce and the turkey we gather to praise! —D.A.W.

The Promise

A Most Unusual Gift of Love

the poem reads:

A Most Unusual Gift of Love

Massachusetts, and someone who until this summer has visited Fenway 45 times, I have to take friendly issue with some journalistic license in “The 85 Best Things to Do in New England” [September/October], which states that Cadillac Mountain is the place “to see the first rays of sun strike the continent.” It is widely acknowledged that Cape Spear in Newfoundland is the easternmost point on our continent. Perhaps it was just justifiable hyperbole? I love your magazine each and every issue. Go Sox.

Danny Joseph Truro, Nova Scotia

Editors’ note: O Canada, you have us there. Our neighbor to the north does indeed light the way for the North American continent. Digging deeper, we found that where the sun shines first in the U.S. is not an easy question to answer—but editor emeritus Jud Hale once gave it his best shot: newengland.com/first-sunrise.

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THEPOEMREADS:

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The drawing you see above is called “The Promise.” It is completely composed of dots of ink. After writing the poem, I worked with a quill pen and placed thousands of these dots, one at a time, to create this gift in honor of my youngest brother and his wife.

Now, I have decided to offer “The Promise” to those who share and value its sentiment. Each litho is numbered and signed by hand and precisely captures the detail of the drawing. As a wedding, anniversary or Valentine’s gift or simply as a standard for your own home, I believe you will find it most appropriate.

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“Across the years I will walk with you— in deep, green forests; on shores of sand: and when our time on earth is through, in heaven, too, you will have my hand.”

“Across the years I will walk with you— in deep, green forests; on shores of sand: and when our time on earth is through, in heaven, too, you will have my hand.”

A Tree in the Shade

wish I could begin this way: We’ve made it through this terrible time. Now more than ever, we have a new reason to celebrate the holiday season. But I cannot. Not yet. And even when that day arrives, how bittersweet will the relief and joy be, when many tens of thousands of Americans have suffered and died, along with countless others far from our shores.

We’ve come through a year in which nothing is as it was before. And now, the holidays await. Our instinct is to gather together, to bring friends and family close around table and hearth. But even that is on hold right now. It is a lot of stuff to carry around day after day. At times it gets too heavy, and we want to feel light again.

When historians look back at this year, they will write about how we confronted long-held mythologies and traditions. Four hundred years ago, the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth Harbor. We were taught in elementary school about the first Thanksgiving; we knew the Pilgrims as heroic first settlers. They were brave, they did suffer, they did endure—but Justin Shatwell’s “Do the Pilgrims Still Matter?” [p. 128] asks us to consider new perspectives on 1620, when white settlers and indigenous peoples inhabited the same land, and examine how that era resonates today. And in this

moment, Maine photographer Séan Alonzo Harris asks us to see with renewed empathy the people of color whose humanity he honors with his work [“Invisible No More,” p. 110].

The magazine you are holding in your hands will not magically change these trying days. But for a few hours, at least, it can be that shaded tree on the trail we’re hiking, a place where we catch a breath before setting out again. Inside, you will meet Santas who are not only jolly but also careful with a child’s trust [“When Santas Get Together,” p. 122]. You can visit Kennebunkport, Maine, during its Christmas Prelude, one of the best holiday events in the country [“Christmas on the Maine Coast,” p. 98], or walk down cobblestone streets on Nantucket [“Weekend Away,” p. 76]. You’ll find iconic regional foods that can double as gifts, delivered right to your doorstep [“The 2020 Yankee Food Awards,” p. 67], and food editor Amy Traverso’s recipes for “A New New England Thanksgiving” [p. 50].

One day soon, I know I will begin like this: We are back on the trail. Let’s go see everyone we have missed. It doesn’t matter when it is, it will be like our first Christmas. Until then, we will keep finding stories that matter, to make you reflect or smile, maybe both. Places to rest before pushing on.

Mel Allen editor@yankeemagazine.com

To catch up on Mel Allen’s biweekly “Letter from Dublin,” go to newengland.com/letterfromdublin.

Life and Chimes

Finding messages and meaning in the daily pealing of church bells.

ere on Cape Cod, in the southside village of Centerville, we hear church bells—two sets, Congregational and Catholic. They do not agree, precisely, on when to strike the hour. What one begins, the other finishes. The bells in the E. Howard clock tower of the Congregationalists are practical timekeepers, and they almost always run ahead of their neighbors. The Catholic bells mark occasion as much as time. Between 5 and 10 minutes before 9 on weekdays, pealing bells—open and hopeful—summon the faithful to Mass. For me, they are a 10-minute warning: Cease puttering, prepare to enter the workaday world. By the time the Congregational bells mark 9 a.m., I am installed at my desk.

All day long, one set of bells or the other will keep me company, cuing me to make a call or make some tea, nudging me when I’m late for lunch, or too long sitting still. Sometimes—around 11, or just before 1—I hear long, low tolls, a Catholic funeral. The departed, unknown, and my religious status, unaffiliated—still, I offer up a prayer in the 10-count interval between each echoing strike. On many Saturdays, especially in spring and summer, when I hear noisy, happy tones overlaying one another I mentally congratulate another pair of newlyweds. Enduring love, I wish them, as I fold the laundry or tidy the kitchen.

For a time this year, there were no funerals, no long tolls, and no wedding bells, either. Still, I found comfort in the hours, their steadiness a solace. And oh, the hymns. It was a few minutes past noon, not quite six years ago, when I heard the first hymn. Lovely, harmonized, two strains and an Amen. Six hours later, the bells rang out again—and I moved outdoors to listen, captivated by a single, unknown tune.

At the next day’s noon, the Catholic bells rang out the Angelus: three sets of three peals, followed by one set of 10. Then, the hymn began. Another Angelus, and two more hymns at 6. Some 2,000 days later, the bells still sing, and I still pause to listen.

The sound is of a carillon; the tunes waft atop crystalclear arpeggios, rising and falling, joining and departing the melody line. Sure, I’d wish for a stocking-capped assembly of Victorian youths—synchronized, smiling, and hanging on ropes—but alas, this is 2020. I’m not bothered by the fact that the bells are recorded. I like thinking about the someone, who, somewhere, created this beautiful music. And a contemporary bonus: Digital technology means we are spared any tinniness or static. These bells are stunning and resonant, beautiful and true.

Through open windows in the summertime, the sound is strongest, but it is in the winter when I love the singing bells the most. I move to the front of the house for the best listening, and I pause to take in the tunes. A few I recognize, and the predictability of others means I can hum along, but I can still name only a handful. That is, until the 25th of December, when the carols begin. There’s one at noon and often two at 6: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “The First Noel,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” For the 12 days between Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany, the bells will play lilting arrangements of ancient, familiar tunes. Listening—unaffiliated or not—I believe there is some joy in the world.

For nearly 30 years, the bells have been my companions and my teachers. Time passes , they pronounce with every hour. But this moment, right now, at 6 o’clock in the bleak winter dark, they remind me: Here is beauty, and the sound of light.

First LIGHT

Boston is home to the longest-running production of Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity, which was first performed OffBroadway in 1961. The guiding lights in this Hub tradition have included the production’s original music director, John Andrew Ross ( above ), and co-creator Elma Lewis ( right).

A Chorus of Memories

Reconnecting with the soul of Boston’s Black Nativity on its 50th anniversary.

BY GRACE ALDRICH

ome childhood memories are tethered to the present like a docked boat. I live a short distance from the lake I swam in as a child, and I can stand at the shore today and easily bring up the feeling of floating on my back in cold currents while my 9-year-old eyes squint in the July sun. But other past events feel a lifetime away, with memories small at the horizon. I need effort to draw

This was true when I heard the Black Nativity , Boston’s gospel-song play written by Langston Hughes, would be celebrating its 50th season this December. First, it struck me as both an astonishing accomplishment and a foregone certainty. Black is a steadfast institution, telling year after year the story of the birth of Jesus through music, dance, the Gospel of Luke, and Hughes’s own poetry. These shows have been woven into holiday rituals for tens of thousands of families since 1970.

I live in rural New Hampshire, and the six formative years I spent as a Black Nativity cast member felt dim and far away. So I went on a search for touchstones to connect me back to those important memories.

I did not have to search long. My mother reminded me I’d first seen the show at age 5. “You just wanted to dance in the aisles the whole time,” she said. And it came back to me: the popping, layered rhythm of African drumming that echoed the intensity of Mary’s birthing pains as she danced the dramatic peak of the show. The original drum score created by late Nigerian musician, educator, and activist Michael Babatunde Olatunji has been a soul-shaking feature since its inception. Recently I listened to a recording of the 1995 show, and the voices still raised the hair on my arms.

When I was a teenager, I saw Black Nativity in the Tremont Street Baptist Temple. “The Dialogue: What Child Is This?” was beautifully arranged as

a duet by the show’s original music director, John Andrew Ross. The song’s slow, pronounced bassline stood in spare contrast to the rocking, jubilant numbers. The stage was completely dark except for the spotlit faces of Black Nativity veterans Janice Allen and Alda Marshall, who sang that night. I had little religious education, but the performance moved me to tears. That night I decided to become a part of the tradition. After the show I told my mom, “I want to sing that song next year.” It was the biggest goal I’d set in my life.

EDMUND BARRY GAITHER , the executive producer of Black Nativity, was there when John Andrew Ross first brought the idea of doing the show to Elma Lewis, who later became Black Nativity ’s artistic director. The show has been produced in many venues over the years. Its current home is in downtown Boston, at the Emerson Paramount Theater on Washington Street.

On a recent Zoom call with the production team, Gaither talked to me

about what Black Nativity represents. “A tradition is property that exists with an energy you become a part of; you join it. Black Nativity is the property of Boston’s Black community. It is available to men and women of goodwill everywhere. And it also confers an obligation—you are joining something you’ve got to live up to once you step into it.”

In October 1993, I stepped in. My mother brought me to the basement of Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury, where the auditions and rehearsals were held. Returning performers greeted each other like family and gathered to revisit the score and teach new members. The 75-plus people who made up the cast were a mix of professional and amateur singers from across Greater Boston. Our ages ranged from 6 to over 60.

I was 16 and warmly welcomed by women who had been there for years. They told me where to stand and made sure I had the sheet music. The show’s “stage mothers” are the support team that ensures everyone is fed,

bobby-pinned, disciplined, hugged, and encouraged backstage. They are indispensable communal glue.

It was a nudge from a motherly mentor that gave me the courage to approach Mr. Ross and audition for the soprano solo in “The Dialogue.” I had prepared for weeks but still felt jittery as I walked to the front of the room and stood rigid by the piano in front of everyone. When the last note faded, Mr. Ross sat for a moment, then said, “You deserve to sing that part, and the audience deserves to hear you.” When I asked him who would sing the duet with me, he said simply, “It shall be revealed to you. You may go back to your section.”

I didn’t realize at the time that the part I auditioned for had always been sung by adults. Encouraging young people to stretch and build confidence was a founding principle instilled by Elma Lewis, the show’s co-creator. “She

Black Nativity depicts the birth of Jesus in a showstopping dance by Mary (here played by Desiree Springer) to African drumming.

“Black Nativity confers an obligation— you are joining something you’ve got to live up to once you step into it.”

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First LIGHT | A CHORUS OF MEMORIES

made sure the children learned important lessons. It was a training. They could do extraordinary things if they had the confidence in themselves,” Gaither recalled.

Elma Lewis passed away in 2004, followed by John Andrew Ross two years later. They had been iconic fixtures for decades, synonymous with the show. The vacuum of energy created when charismatic leaders leave their posts often means the creations cannot stand on their own, but Black Nativity ’s engine still runs, reliable and strong.

Milton Wright, the current musical director, told me why the show remains vital. “We bring authenticity. Gospel in itself is a genre that highly appreciates personal adaptation.”

Betty Hillmon has worn many hats in Black Nativity since joining the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in 1975. “It is an open show for the cast,” she told me. “And the role that is most popular among the children is Mary. In their

minds they can do that dance—or any solo. They are preparing themselves, and we don’t tell them that they can’t.”

“We have retained the best features, and everyone brings their artistic genius,” Gaither added.

Many of the children who grew up performing in Black Nativity want the same experience for their kids. Kafi Meadows, the co-chair of Black Nativity ’s 50th anniversary celebration committee, has a daughter in the show. “She pushes herself,” Meadows said. “The growth is good for children. It’s an opportunity for character development.”

After we said good-bye on that Zoom call I sat in front of my dark computer screen. I could grasp once again how those early years on stage had shaped me. The sense of self that I gained had never gone away. And if I ever wanted to step back in, I have a permanent place in that tradition. I may move to the alto section, since

my voice has changed, but there will always be a robe for me. The disconnect I’d felt from those memories spoke more to my challenges in trying to find that feeling of community here in New Hampshire. Black Nativity evokes feelings of being seen and accepted in ways that are much harder to practice where I live now.

I remembered the first time I carefully stepped out from the chorus to the front of the pitch-black stage to sing my solo. My bare feet were cool on the floor of the cavernous old temple on Tremont Street. I lifted my head and squinted when the bright spotlight hit my face. The expansive feeling was familiar— not like floating, but like being held and carried, supported at my back. It was the feeling of being connected and alive, at home in my skin.

For more information and the latest updates on the status of the 2020 season, go to blacknativity.org.

Members of the Children of Black Persuasion chorus sing “Mary, Mary, What You Gonna Name Your Baby?” in the 2017 production of Black Nativity.

Diann Roffe

Catching up with the two-time Olympic ski racer and featured Weekends with Yankee guest.

If there’s such a thing as American skiing royalty, Diann Roffe is almost certainly among its ranks. As a senior at Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy, she burst onto the scene in 1985 when she won gold in the Giant Slalom at the World Championships in Italy. Over the next decade, the Rochester, New York, native racked up 36 World Cup top-10 finishes, won silver in the giant slalom at the 1992 Winter Olympics, and captured the gold in the super G at the Games two years later. Since retiring, Roffe—who was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 2003—has focused on coaching a new generation of Olympic hopefuls, most recently as director of the junior program at Burke Mountain Academy. —Ian

Aldrich

Q. New England is populated with so many small, family-oriented ski mountains. What role do these places play in helping to groom future Olympians?

It’s the culture. They keep the sport incredibly simple, from the parking, to the lodge with the $1 hot dogs, to the fact that these small ski areas allow kids to roam free. They allow kids to just play in a safe environment. There’s also time on snow. When your small ski area is accessible and you live close by, why wait in lift lines at the bigger ski areas when you can go at night or after school with your friends and be skiing most of the time? You might get in 30 runs. So you’re constantly balancing on your skis and playing and moving around, getting on the lift and off the lift. All that time on your skis and on the snow is just an incredible advantage.

Q. What about New England’s often-icy terrain? Does that give its skiers a competitive advantage? Absolutely. There’s a constant battle at ski areas to provide perfect snow, but at the World Cup race you want the conditions to be as fair as possible, which means that they need to be as hard as possible for every athlete, from number 1 to number 100. Eastern

Diann Roffe on the slopes in 1985, and ( below ) on the scene as a commentator at the 2015 Vail World Championships.

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ski racers are familiar with those conditions—that’s what they’ve grown up skiing on.

Q. Vermont’s Killington Ski Resort has hosted the past several Women’s World Cup races and is arguably one of New England’s signature ski destinations. What accounts for that?

It’s not just an iconic New England ski area—it’s a prime spot for the sport. Both my parents were ski instructors, and we’d make a trek to Killington every spring for a family trip. We’d ski the entire mountain. It’s a big mountain that gets cold early, so you can ski it early in the season. And it’s accessible to people in New York and Boston, so they can come and watch the big races. You’re not going to get that in Colorado, where you have to deal with the whole I-70 nightmare.

Q. Skiing is such an intergenerational sport. You were trained by some of the best coaches in the world, and now you’re paying that forward. What has that meant to you?

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It’s been awesome. You just see kids having so much fun in such a positive environment. In so many ways we’ve lost that understanding that children really want to learn. They are sponges, and learning a sport that’s incredibly fun and social and hard is just a wonderful thing for a child’s experience. It teaches them they can fail and, in fact, they have to fail to learn. Sure, they might fall every day for two weeks but then they get to the point where they are standing up and getting faster. Being able to coach a child through that is so rewarding.

Q. When you’re watching these young guns at a World Cup or another big race, is there any part of you that wants to get out there with them?

[Laughs.] No. I’m probably half the skier I was—but I don’t care.

The Best-Guest List

A classic Thanksgiving poem offers a primer on notable New Englanders.

Longtime readers of Yankee and The Old Farmer’s Almanac will recognize the name of Tim Clark, the writer and editor behind many funny, moving, and memorable pieces in those publications. In honor of Tim’s retirement after 40-plus years of wordsmithing, we’re sharing an excerpt from his classic poem in the November 1983 issue of Yankee : “We Gather Together,” an epic namecheck of famous New Englanders that he imagines inviting to Thanksgiving dinner.

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing on turkey and gravy and cranberry dressing, and welcome our guests, both the dead and the living, to join this imagined New England Thanksgiving.

There’s plenty to do now, so everyone pitch in— Would Julia Child please help out in the kitchen? Let all do the jobs for which they are most able— we’ll ask Martha Stewart to help set the table.

Good day, Johnny Appleseed, doff your tin topper, And sit yourself down next to young Edward Hopper. Ahoy there, Josh Slocum! Shalom , Ben and Jerry! We hope you brought lots of our favorite, Cherry Garcia! Has Longfellow brought Hiawatha? Let’s find a fauteuil for Whistler’s Mothah!

UNCOMMON SENSE

Let’s seat Robert Frost in a place of high honor, with Eugene O’Neill and with Edwin O’Connor, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, none could be sager, or more Transcendental a thinker, we’ll wager.

We’ve dallied so long that the guests are all starving; Ahem, Lizzie Borden, would you do the carving? (It’s rare that one sees the job done with a hatchet.) Now pass us a drumstick, Doug Flutie! We’ll catch it! The stuffing? We asked big Bill Russell to do it— give plenty of helpings to Sarah Orne Jewett.

Whoops! Emily Dickinson’s into the cider, We shouldn’t have let Paul Revere sit beside her. Is that Henry David Thoreau quoting Walden to lovely Priscilla, the wife of John Alden?

The hour is late; there’s a long road before us, so lift up your voices in one final chorus of hymns thanking God for the land and its bounty, led by Nelson Eddy, who’s dressed like a Mountie.

Farewell and good luck to guests real and fictitious; Babe Ruth’s batting cleanup. Let him do the dishes.

To read this poem in its entirety, go to newengland.com/gather-together.

A best-selling food writer and chef, this Boston native did not take the most direct route to the kitchen. At MIT, he started out as a biology major, then switched to a degree in architecture, but it was his part-time jobs in restaurants that eventually led to his life’s work: studying, making, and celebrating delicious things to eat. Now a food columnist for The New York Times , he is the editor of The Best American Food Writing 2020 , due out November 3.

“I wouldn’t want a superpower. Way too much expectation and responsibility…. Batman is my favorite superhero. No superpowers—just intelligence and perseverance.”

—J. Kenji López-Alt (born October 31, 1979)

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Decking the Nubble

The most iconic of Maine’s 65 lighthouses stands less than 300 feet from the mainland, separated by a choppy inlet off the tip of York’s Cape Neddick Peninsula. Its official name is Cape Neddick Light, but to the millions who have come to tiny Sohier Park to gaze and photograph it, it is simply Nubble Light, whose beacon and horn have protected ships since 1879.

Its nickname comes from the 2.8-acre nub of granite upon which it sits, but its hold on people’s hearts comes from its near-perfect symmetry of sea, sky, outbuilding, keeper’s house, white fence, tower—a dreamlike portrait of function made beautiful. In 1977, when the Voyager probes blasted off for Jupiter and beyond in search of possible alien life, they carried images showing what we revered here on Earth. Among those images: the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, and Nubble Light. It is all the more alluring because it stands so resolute, so close, yet you cannot step onto the island to touch it.

Nubble Light is never more loved by those who know it best, the people of York and southern Maine, than when dark descends on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and,

seemingly by magic, white lights flow across the contours of buildings, fence, tower—a silent declaration that winter can wait, this holiday season is a time of delight.

Until a few years ago, everyone would stream into Sohier Park for a 6 p.m. countdown, shouting “4-3-2-1” in hopes their combined voices would reach across the waves to whoever waited on the island to flick the switch. Now, to help with crowds, the lights simply come on when it gets dark (a process that then repeats nightly until New Year’s). The 30-year tradition has morphed into something of a party, people flowing in and out like the tide. Beginning at 3 p.m., buses carry people from the high school and the beach. There is Santa, and live reindeer, and thousands of free cookies baked by locals.

Nearly every place has a tree lighting. But only here, in the dark, you can imagine these lights like tiny stars in the sky, shining and forming the perfection of a constellation called Nubble Light. —Mel Allen

For information on the 2020 lighting and to see a live webcam, go to nubblelight.org.

A beloved lighthouse tradition shines on in Maine.

The doors of Christmas 12

Deb Cohen, whose photos of historic homes have made her an Instagram hit, shares a dozen favorite facades to get us into the holiday spirit.

BY ANNIE GRAVES

1 In the words of Deb Cohen ( above ):

“The stunning Second Empire Silas W. Robbins House ( left), in Wethersfield, Connecticut, gets the royal treatment with soldiers standing at attention on either side of the first-floor windows, big red bows, and wreaths gracing its double doors. More is always more with a Victorian!”

Some mysteries will remain forever unsolved. What moved some long-ago soul to weave evergreens together to make an adornment? Who hung that first wreath on a cold and snowy day? Or decked that first hall? And why do we like to dress our houses up so?

Leave it to the ancient Etruscans to have had a hand in the personaladornment wreath department, in cozy company with the Greeks and Romans. Fast-forward to Advent wreaths used in Germany in the 16th century, and to Christmas wreaths

made of evergreens 300 years later. These are the early, swirling, tantalizing glimpses into today’s traditions. Or at least partial truths….

What we do know is that frontdoor adornment came and stayed. And the practice is alive and well all over New England, where our traditional (and sometimes not-sotraditional) architecture provides a ready canvas for dress-up.

Which brings us to the Front Door Project.

By her own estimate, Deb Cohen has taken some 5,000 photographs of front doors and facades, from Maine

to Rhode Island, since beginning her project in 2014, which has made her something of a connoisseur, if not an expert, and an Instagram sensation (@thefrontdoorproject). With an eye for color and detail that has brought her nearly 80,000 followers, the 52-year-old Connecticut native has also honed a jaunty narrative that offers a dash of history, wrapped in observation. In other words, she was

“Swags of pine drape this elegant Wickford, Rhode Island, fence and traditional urns flank the doorway—a pleasing display of symmetry.”

“Hard to believe, but this Suffield, Connecticut, house is a reproduction 18th-century colonial. The carved entry is a regional-style Connecticut River Valley doorway, highlighted by double wreaths and simple swags.”

“A gust of wind came along just as I was taking the photo, making it look like this Amherst, New Hampshire, brick beauty was inside a snow globe. Pine swags and a wreath decorated with fruit are elegant accents for a traditional home.”

4

5

“This striking 18th-century home in South Windsor, Connecticut, needs nothing more than one large statement wreath, while the red trim is holiday-ready year-round.”

“Fairy lights add sparkle but don’t distract from the unique double doors and windows that surround this Litchfield, Connecticut, entryway.”

6

“Looking for an additional pop of red, like this Wickford, Rhode Island, home? Spray-paint some inexpensive urns for a fresh take, and tie a gingham-accented bow on the wreath.”

7

As for what kind of house grabs her attention, Cohen says, “What it boils down to is whoever lives there has taken great care. And you can see the pride that comes from the home.”

8

9

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the ideal resource to tap for our showcase of 12 holiday front doors, decked out in New England–style finery.

“I didn’t intend to build a following,” says Cohen, with a trace of humor. “I just wanted to start walking more, be outside more, but I was kind of bored walking by myself. So I started taking pictures of the beautiful houses where I live, in West Hartford, primarily focusing on their front doors.” Simultaneously, she started sharing her photos on Instagram—much to her teenage

11

daughter’s dismay. “She’s like, ‘Mom! You can’t be on here!’”

The Front Door Project caught on quickly. “People definitely enjoyed the images, they loved the curb appeal and the architecture, but I think they also liked the tone,” she says. “Readers tell me that they look forward to my post every day, which just blows me away. I think they feel a connection with me through it—it’s like a community.”

As her fan base grew, Cohen expanded her travels, collecting

more doors, delving into other historic neighborhoods, and discovering favorites like Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Camden, Maine; and Newburyport, Massachusetts.

She’s convinced that the seeds of obsession were sown early on, in the vintage 1911 Victorian in which she grew up in South Windsor, Connecticut, then nurtured in college at William & Mary, with Colonial Williamsburg nearby. Her love of architecture and New England history

“A fresh coat of snow accents this Amherst, New Hampshire, Cape with its crisp white trim and saturated blue-gray exterior, but it’s the goldenrod-yellow doors that pop, spotlighting their simple wreaths. Ornaments hung in the transom window add a touch of whimsy.”

“This Newport, Rhode Island, home sidesteps the typical red-and-green motif, with fresh greenery and a wreath with white stars that can carry this home well past the holidays.”

“Window boxes, like this trio in Boston’s Back Bay, are ready-made for seasonal decor.”

“ The 1752 Joseph Webb House, at the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum in Wethersfield, Connecticut, is decorated with fruit wreaths and swags expertly crafted by museum staff. The pineapple above the door is a traditional symbol of hospitality, still used today.”

would eventually inspire her to work at the Mark Twain House in Hartford for three years; she also became an ambassador for the Connecticut Office of Tourism, vice chair of the West Hartford Historic District Commission, and a trustee of Preservation Connecticut. This past year she also become a Realtor.

With so many photos in the Front Door Project to choose from, it wasn’t easy when we asked Cohen to winnow them down to 12 eye-catching holiday favorites. The finalists—which all have captions in Cohen’s own words—range from a Newport, Rhode Island, storefront decked in bows and boughs to a brilliant little

New Hampshire Cape with a shot of neon yellow for a doorway.

All are winners; each has something to impart. But when someone has seen and photographed so many houses, I couldn’t help asking: What catches your eye? What stops you in your tracks? What makes a photo that you’ll want to share with your fellow aficionados?

“It’s funny,” Cohen says. “Sometimes it’s the seasonal decor that grabs me. Other times it’s a really bright, cheery front door. It might be an otherwise ordinary house, but maybe the homeowners have gone full out with window boxes, or they’ve added a gorgeous door knocker. Really, what it

boils down to is whoever lives there has taken great care. And you can see the pride that comes from the home.”

But there’s a mystery here, too. “Sometimes, honestly, I might go past a home every day for six months and not notice it,” she confesses. “Then maybe all of a sudden it snows. The trees look different. The house looks different. And it’s like—bam, there it is. I realize, wow, that’s gorgeous. Homes have different seasons, almost. I feel like they change with the season.”

To see more of the Front Door Project, go to thefrontdoorproject.com or look for it on Instagram and Facebook.

“Red-and-gold bows enliven traditional greenery and storefront windows in Newport, Rhode Island, with little pine trees in the window boxes.”

HEADING OUT ”

For a Day of Fun

Forrest Pirovano’s painting “Heading out” shows A Herreshoff S-Class Sailboat underway

S-Class boats are known for their sailing performance. Designed in 1919 by Captain Nat Herreshoff, a renowned Naval architect, and built until 1941, these boats are still actively raced in Narrangansett Bay, Buzzards Bay, and Western Long Island Sound. These boats are extremely fast in light wind due to their large sail area, and they remain stable in the strong breeze due to the full lead keel and the design of the curved mast. These unique boats are best sailed with an experienced crew of four of five. This beautiful limited-edition print of an original oil painting, individually numbered and signed by the artist, captures the beauty of this famous sailing yacht.

This exquisite print is bordered by a museum-quality white-on-white double mat, measuring 11x14 inches. Framed in either a black or white 1 ½ inch deep wood frame, this limited-edition print measures 12 ¼ X 15 ¼ inches and is priced at only $149. Matted but unframed the price for this print is $109. Prices include shipping and packaging.

Forrest Pirovano is a Cape Cod artist. His paintings capture the picturesque landscape and seascapes of the Cape which have a universal appeal. His paintings often include the many antique wooden sailboats and picturesque lighthouses that are home to Cape Cod.

FORREST PIROVANO, artist

P.O. Box 1011 • Mashpee, MA 02649

Visit our studio in Mashpee Commons, Cape Cod

All major credit cards are welcome. Please send card name, card number, expiration date, code number & billing ZIP code. Checks are also accepted.…Or you can call Forrest at 781-858-3691.…Or you can pay through our website www.forrestcapecodpaintings.com

Unprecedented Times and Unexpected Solutions

ust a few months ago, the world was unexpectedly brought to a standstill by an invisible airborne virus, leaving almost no country, neighborhood, business, or enterprise una ected. And the group of people in the eye of the storm, who have experienced the preponderance of losses, are older adults.

The Risk of Isolation

As we strive to adhere to guidelines that will keep us safe from the virus, this pandemic has emphasized the impact of loneliness for many of us, which itself has negative impacts on our health. ere is strong clinical evidence that social isolation is the culprit behind many health risks, from depression and anxiety to more serious health concerns.

Seniors today are more isolated in general—unlike our grandparents, we can’t count on our children living around the corner. e traditional 1950s family support model that

served the previous generation is becoming defunct.

Why Today’s Retirees Are Di erent

Not only have family structures changed, retirees today are very di erent than any other generation. As Boomers, we’ve slowly turned the traditional image of retirement on its ear. We expect to remain physically and mentally active, engaged with our local community, and are eager to nd new pursuits, make new friends, and continue to learn new things.

ere are more of us than ever before. Every day, 10,000 Americans are turning 70, and that trend will continue for the next 18 years. anks to advances in medical care, we are also living longer than prior generations.

The Financial Impact of Living Longer

It’s a fact that over 70% of Americans over 65 will need some form of long-term care, and for a smaller

percentage of people, that care can last up to ve years or more. So, what is the plan to ensure we have that coverage, and what does it look like?

As we get older, those questions become more pertinent: How will I receive care when I need it, where will I get that care, and how much will it cost?

The 100-Year-Old Solution

ere is one solution that has been quietly operating for the past 100 years in the U.S., and whose structure and practices are uniquely positioned for this generation. Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) could be described as “retirement communities with bene ts.” ere are 1,900 across the country, but just a handful in New England, and they are often misunderstood.

CCRCs, also called Life Plan or Life Care Communities, provide generally three levels of care: independent, assisted living, and some level of

A new generation of retirees nds community despite pandemic.

nursing care. e critical di erence is that most people enter the community when they are independent and can live safely on their own. ey enjoy active, independent lives, free of the worries and time-consuming work of home maintenance. Once there, when residents need care, they can receive it, right within the community, at a heavily discounted rate. Some residents also enter at an assisted living level.

Although CCRCs look like beautiful retirement communities, complete with gyms, pools, libraries and arts rooms, moving there is not a real estate decision. CCRCs are an insurance product, and they are governed by each state’s regulatory body. erefore, a percentage of a resident’s entrance fee and monthly service fee is considered a tax deduction as a prepaid medical expense—a real advantage for many.

What You Need to Know

e three major types of CCRC contracts are Type A, B and C. Type A are all-inclusive plans, meaning that as you move from one level of care to the next, your monthly fee does not increase (except for two additional meals per day). ese are generally the highest cost. Type B, or modi ed contracts, o er de ned insurance, typically providing a portion of your health care fee at a discount from market price, when you need health care. ese are less expensive contracts and are good for people who don’t want to pay for care until it’s needed. Similarly, Type C contracts are generally the least expensive, and provide independent living at a lower rate with guaranteed

access to healthcare on a fee-for-service basis.

Financial Security and Peace of Mind

Some CCRCs o er asset preservation in the form of a partially refundable contract, meaning a portion of the original entrance fee is refunded back to you or your estate when you leave the community or pass away.

Additionally, most CCRCs in New England are not-for-pro t, and o er a Benevolence Clause, which states that if a resident has unintentionally outlived their assets, they will not be asked to leave due to lack of funds.

Freedom to Live as You Choose

Imagine a life without worrying about snow removal after every storm. Spring clean-up, raking leaves, roof repairs, plumbing issues—never again. At a CCRC, all aspects of interior and exterior home maintenance are taken care of for you. Housekeeping services are provided as well, along with dining options and tness programs.

In these active communities, you can enjoy the safety of social activities right on campus without the hassle of driving. Whatever you choose to do with your free time, you have the freedom to live life without the burden of home maintenance.

A Plan for Whatever the Future Brings

By choosing a CCRC, you are making the important decisions about your future health care for yourself instead of leaving those decisions to your

family. One of the greatest bene ts of a CCRC is that you are ensured lifetime access to health care when and if it is ever required. Couples also have the assurance of being able to stay together—regardless of individual future healthcare needs.

Connection Even in Isolation

During this pandemic, one signi cant advantage CCRC residents have had over those isolating at home is access to friends and social opportunities. Residents have been able to continue to engage with one another creatively with plenty of activities and social occasions held safely outdoors or from a six-foot distance.

In addition, within each CCRC there are teams of professionals who not only provide residents with safe and easy access to groceries and prescriptions, but also plenty of PPE (personal protective equipment), meals delivered to the home, and continued access to health care right down the hall, when needed.

A Future You Decide

Even in these unprecedented times, the solution that CCRCs o er is clear—a home where you can be as independent as you like, while living safely within a community, away from isolation and loneliness. You are free from the burden of maintaining a home, with more free time to live life as you choose. You’ll enjoy peace of mind for you and your family, secure in the knowledge that if anything changes in your health down the road, you have chosen where you will receive your care.

A World of Imagination

Maine native Abigail Halpin’s vivid illustrations help bring children’s storybooks to life.

BY ANNIE GRAVES

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JENNIFER BAKOS

wild torrent of jungle, splashed with outsize flowers, charges across the pages of Finding Wild , even as slivers of city peer from the background. Abigail Halpin’s bold and brilliant illustrations, inspired by folk art, are barely contained on paper.

Lush colors suffuse Mama’s Belly , too—a reassuring read for little ones about to be joined by a baby sibling. And they entwine with music in her latest, Itzhak: A Boy Who Loved the Violin , written by Tracy Newman, released earlier this year. Each is a reminder that children’s books are a powerful means of hooking young imaginations. Those big covers are simply the doors into another world.

Halpin grew up “drawing all the time” in Wells, Maine, where she still lives. Some of the scenes in Finding Wild —picking blueberries, jumping off rocks, distant islands rising to the surface like sea turtles—are based on childhood camping trips to Maine state parks. “I think I was more of a visual kid growing up,” Halpin says.

“It was easier for me to express emotions, hopes, and dreams visually.”

She mixes mediums effortlessly, to maximum effect—watercolor, gouache, colored pencil—with a dash of digital cleanup. In 2018, Halpin’s series of covers for Taproot , a Mainebased magazine, captured a feeling of rural life so colorfully visceral it makes you want to move right in. Vermont gets its moment, too: Mama’s Belly , with its leafy green abundance, lakes, and mountains, is loosely modeled on an area around Waterbury. Halpin’s New England is irresistible on the page.

To be a deeply impactful illustrator, it helps to be a deeply committed reader. “My parents read to us from infancy on,” she says. “As we got older,

opposite : Abigail Halpin with some of the books she’s illustrated, including Mama’s Belly and Anne’s Kindred Spirits .

this page : Snapshots of Halpin’s creative world, taken in her studio overlooking the Salmon Falls River in Rollinsford, New Hampshire.

my mom would read from a chapter book every night, sort of like Netflix for ’80s kids. I’d get to a point where I was so excited: OK … what happens next?! It created such strong visual pictures in my head—I had to put them on paper.”

As a teenager, Halpin was homeschooled, her afternoons filled with drawing and creating. “I had time to suddenly dive into something I loved, and it definitely provided a foundation for me,” she recalls. The beloved children’s book illustrator Tasha

Halpin’s bright and lively artwork follows in the footsteps of some of her favorite illustrators, such as Tasha Tudor, Gyo Fujikawa, and Carl Larsson.

Tudor was one of her early influences. So was Gyo Fujikawa: “I was obsessed with her books,” she says. “She was in Japanese internment camps during World War II. Her books are filled with these almost dreamlike little kids.”

When Halpin got her first book contract 12 years ago— Maybe Yes, Maybe No, Maybe Maybe , a reissue of Newbery Medal winner Susan Patron’s chapter book about sisters being raised by a single mom—she took a leap of faith and quit her day job as a graphic designer. Sixteen books (and 35 book covers) later, Halpin has also produced two fanciful collections of textiles for Figo Fabrics, a Canadian company that wanted to tap into the contemporary

HEADING OUT ”

For a Day of Fun

Forrest Pirovano’s painting “Heading out” shows A Herreshoff S-Class Sailboat underway

S-Class boats are known for their sailing performance. Designed in 1919 by Captain Nat Herreshoff, a renowned Naval architect, and built until 1941, these boats are still actively raced in Narrangansett Bay, Buzzards Bay, and Western Long Island Sound. These boats are extremely fast in light wind due to their large sail area, and they remain stable in the strong breeze due to the full lead keel and the design of the curved mast. These unique boats are best sailed with an experienced crew of four of five. This beautiful limited-edition print of an original oil painting, individually numbered and signed by the artist, captures the beauty of this famous sailing yacht.

This exquisite print is bordered by a museum-quality white-on-white double mat, measuring 11x14 inches. Framed in either a black or white 1 ½ inch deep wood frame, this limited-edition print measures 12 ¼ X 15 ¼ inches and is priced at only $149. Matted but unframed the price for this print is $109. Prices include shipping and packaging.

Forrest Pirovano is a Cape Cod artist. His paintings capture the picturesque landscape and seascapes of the Cape which have a universal appeal. His paintings often include the many antique wooden sailboats and picturesque lighthouses that are home to Cape Cod.

FORREST PIROVANO, artist

P.O. Box 1011 • Mashpee, MA 02649

Visit our studio in Mashpee Commons, Cape Cod

All major credit cards are welcome. Please send card name, card number, expiration date, code number & billing ZIP code. Checks are also accepted.…Or you can call Forrest at 781-858-3691.…Or you can pay through our website www.forrestcapecodpaintings.com

quilting market. “I love sewing, and it had always been a dream to make fabric,” she says. “Fabric is kind of like storytelling in a way—there’s a narrative in there.”

A 15-minute drive from her home in Maine takes Halpin over the border into New Hampshire, to her cheery studio located in a converted brick mill building overlooking the Salmon Falls River in Rollinsford. The building houses a mix of artisans, from photographers and sculptors to a soap maker and a woodworker. “My drafting table is right in front of the window, so I’m looking out on the river, into Maine,” she says. “I get to see the different seasons, the herons—it’s a beautiful view.”

It’s where she sat to conjure up the illustrations for Itzhak: A Boy Who Loved the Violin , which recounts the early life of violinist Itzhak Perlman, and her view is about as far from urban 1940s Tel Aviv as you can get. “I definitely did a lot of research in the beginning,” Halpin says. “Even little things like, What would apartments in Tel Aviv have looked like? What were polio treatments like for him? I’ve always really loved that investigative end of it, so I kind of nerded out over the research. It was so interesting.”

Finally, though, she did what she always does with her characters, whether it’s Anne of Green Gables, for the series of chapter books she’s been illustrating, or a worldrenowned violinist.

“At the end of the day, I end up bonding with each of the characters I draw.” Halpin pauses, searching for the right words. “With Itzhak, by the time I was done, and had learned about the odds he’d overcome, the things he’d done, and the joy he brings— that brought joy to making the work. I think you have to fall in love with the characters you illustrate. And when I do— that’s when the art clicks for me.” theodesign.com

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A New

NEW ENGLAND Thanksgiving

REIMAGINE YOUR MENU WITH MODERN HOLIDAY RECIPES USING CLASSIC REGIONAL FLAVORS.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE ST. PIERRE

FOOD STYLING BY JOY HOWARD

PROP STYLING BY ANN

LEWIS

Just as this year’s Yankee Food Awards are inspired by New England classics, this menu is a tip of the hat to our most iconic regional ingredients. There’s molasses in the turkey brine and cider in the glaze, brown bread and chouriço sausage in the dressing, maple and walnuts in the Brussels sprouts, crispy cheddar in the mashed potatoes, and Marshmallow Fluff in the pumpkin pie. The result is both classic and modern, familiar and fresh. Happy Thanksgiving!

NOTE:

Our turkey recipe [p. 54] calls for a natural (unbrined) bird. If using a prebasted, injected, or kosher bird, skip the brining ingredients and instructions.

A traditional feast, transformed: Molasses-Brined Spatchcocked Turkey with Cider Glaze, Brown Bread–Cornbread Dressing, Crispy Brussels Sprouts with Maple-Glazed Walnuts, and Mashed Potatoes with Crunchy Cheddar Crisps.

MOLASSES-BRINED SPATCHCOCKED TURKEY WITH

CIDER GLAZE

l l l l

A molasses brine gives this bird a rich depth, while a cider glaze adds zing. Spatchcocking, or butterflying, is simply cutting out the backbone of a turkey or chicken and pressing the bird flat so that it cooks more evenly in a single layer. You get crispier skin and tender breast meat. You can ask your butcher to do the spatchcocking for you, or use a sharp knife or kitchen shears to do it yourself (watch a video if doing it for the first time).

For the brine

7 quarts water

1¾ cups kosher salt

2 cups molasses

3 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters

1 2½-inch knob of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

For the turkey and glaze

1 13-to-15-pound natural turkey, thawed and spatchcocked (see Note on p. 52)

2 medium onions, peeled and quartered

2 cups cider

½ cup dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

For the sauce

Pan drippings

Remaining glaze

1 cup reduced-sodium chicken stock, plus more as needed

3 tablespoons salted butter

On the morning of the day before Thanksgiving, prepare your brine:

In a very large pot (I use a lobster pot), stir the water, salt, and molasses until the salt is dissolved. Add the onions and ginger.

Remove the neck and giblets from the turkey, then submerge it in the brine. If you don’t have a pot large enough to hold the bird, use two brining bags (double-bagged) in a roasting pan.

Brine the turkey for 8 to 12 hours. and pat it dry, and lay it skin side up on a rack in your roasting pan. Let it sit, uncovered, in your refrigerator overnight. This will result in a very crispy skin.

On Thanksgiving morning, remove the turkey from the refrigerator and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 300°. The turkey should be skin side up on the rack, with the wingtips tucked underneath the breast and the leg bones angled in so the whole bird fits in the pan. Scatter the onions around. Transfer to the oven.

Meanwhile, prepare the glaze: In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, whisk together the cider, brown sugar, vinegar, and mustard. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and let the mixture cook down and thicken until you have ²⁄3 cup, about 25 to 30 minutes.

After 2½ to 3 hours of roasting, check the temperature at the deepest

part of the breast. It should be about 150°. If not, let it roast another 15 minutes and check again. At this point, brush glaze all over the top of the turkey and increase the heat to 350°. Cook for 15 minutes, then glaze again. Cook for another 10 minutes, glaze once more, and check the temperature. The meat in the deepest part of the breast should be 160° and the thigh should be 170°; if not, let it cook another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Save the remaining glaze for the sauce.

Now, make the sauce: Strain the drippings from the pan into a gravy separator and pour off the fat. You should have about 2 cups of drippings. If not, add a bit of chicken stock. Put the drippings in the pan with the remaining glaze and 1 cup chicken stock. Simmer until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 10 to 15 minutes. Whisk in the butter.

Carve the turkey and serve with the sauce. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

Brown Bread–Cornbread Dressing

BROWN BREAD–CORNBREAD DRESSING l

l l l

Cornbread dressings can’t be beat, in my view, but that got me thinking of New England brown bread [see “The 2020 Yankee Food Awards, p. 67] , which is made with cornmeal, rye, and wheat. Why not try it in a dressing? (For food safety reasons, I like to bake my dressing outside the turkey, so we don’t call it stuffing.) It may be too sweet and intense as a solo ingredient, but you can dilute it with—what else?—cornbread. I’ve tested this dish with sweet cornbread from the supermarket, a less-sweet box-mix variety, and a savory cornbread recipe of my own. All worked well, so choose based on your preferred sweetness level (and time constraints). The spicy sausage, a nod to New England’s Portuguese heritage, balances out the sweetness, as do the standard aromatics: carrots, celery, onions, and parsley.

4 cups (10 ounces) cubed cornbread (1-inch pieces)

2 cups (7 ounces) cubed brown bread (1-inch pieces)

4 t ablespoons salted butter, plus more for greasing pan

1 medium onion, diced

2 medium carrots, diced

2 medium celery stalks, diced

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces chouriço, linguiça, chorizo, or other cooked spicy sausage, cut into ½-inch pieces

1 cup packed fresh parsley leaves, roughly chopped

2 large eggs

2 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock

Preheat the oven to 325°. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with butter and set aside. Arrange the cornbread and brown bread cubes on a large

rimmed baking sheet. Transfer to the oven and cook until toasted, about 15 minutes. Set aside.

Increase oven temperature to 375°. Melt the butter in a large skillet, then add the onion, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until softened, 6 minutes, then add the sausage and cook 5 minutes more. Add parsley, stir, then remove from heat.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and chicken stock until blended.

Put the bread cubes into a large bowl, then add the sausage mixture and toss to combine. Pour the chicken stock and eggs over all and gently toss together. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for at least 45 minutes and up to 1 day. Bake until cooked through and crispy on top, 40 to 45 minutes. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

Pumpkin-Fluff Pie (recipe, p. 58)

HOLIDAY COOKING

CRISPY BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH MAPLE-GLAZED WALNUTS

Maple-glazed walnuts may be nothing new, but here they get a kick from cider vinegar. Add savory roasted Brussels sprouts, and you have a sweet, salty, tangy side dish.

1 tablespoon salted butter

¹⁄ 3 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

²⁄ 3 cup chopped walnuts

10 cups (1½ pounds) halved Brussels sprouts (cut lengthwise)

¼ cup olive oil

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add maple syrup and vinegar and cook until the mixture is frothy and starts to thicken, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the

walnuts and stir with a rubber spatula. Transfer walnuts to the lined baking sheet and spread in an even layer. Bake until caramelized, about 10 minutes, then remove from the oven. Lift the parchment paper from the baking sheet to transfer the walnuts to a wire rack to cool while you prepare the Brussels sprouts.

Increase oven heat to 450°. Put the rimmed baking sheet back in the oven on the bottom rack to heat.

In a large bowl, toss the Brussels sprouts with the oil, salt, and pepper. Remove the hot baking sheet from the oven and arrange the Brussels sprouts in a single layer, cut side down (use tongs). Return to the oven and roast until the Brussels sprouts are nicely browned on the cut side, 20 to 25 minutes.

Arrange the Brussels sprouts on a serving platter. Break the candied walnuts into small pieces and sprinkle over the vegetables. Serve warm or at room temperature. Yields 8 servings.

MASHED POTATOES WITH CRUNCHY CHEDDAR CRISPS

Cheddar, potatoes, and chives are an unbeatable combo. Thinking of the classic green bean casserole with crunchy fried onions on top, I decided to bake shredded cheddar cheese into crispy rounds for a deeply savory topping (they also make a great snack for low-carb eaters). The cheese crisps can be made up to two days in advance but should be added just before serving to preserve their crunch.

3½ cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar (preferably orange-colored)

2 tablespoons minced chives

4 pounds potatoes, Russet or Yukon Gold, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

2 cups half-and-half

1 stick salted butter

¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, toss the shredded cheddar with the chives. Pick up a small handful of the mixture and drop it in a roughly 2½-inch pile on the lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining cheese mixture. You should have enough cheese to make 16 piles. Transfer to the oven and bake, turning the pan midway through, until cheese is sizzling, crisp, and uniformly amber in color, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and pat with paper towels to remove excess oil. Transfer

Mashed Potatoes with Crunchy Cheddar Crisps

Crispy Brussels Sprouts with Maple-Glazed Walnuts

to a wire rack to cool at room temperature.

Now make the mashed potatoes. Put the cubed potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Add 2 tablespoons salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until tender when pierced with a knife.

Meanwhile, warm the half-andhalf with the butter over medium heat until butter is melted. Reduce heat to low to keep warm.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them, reserving the cooking water in a bowl, and return them to the pot. Use a potato masher or ricer to mash the potatoes until smooth. Using a wooden spoon, add the half-and-half mixture to the potatoes, ½ cup at a time, beating to combine until they reach your desired consistency. If the potatoes still seem dry, add a bit of the cooking liquid. Season with pepper and additional salt to taste. Just before serving, garnish with cheese crisps (whole or broken into pieces, as you prefer) and serve warm. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

PUMPKIN-FLUFF PIE

● ● ● ●

The inspiration for this pie came from the marshmallow-topped sweet potato side dish that, for many, defines the holiday table. Here, marshmallows take the form of Fluff, the iconic New England spread that debuted in Massachusetts in 1917. It’s a bit like having the whipped cream in the pie itself. And the entire filling can be made on the stovetop. Aside from the crust, there’s no baking required, which will free up valuable oven space.

For the crust

1¼ cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

9 tablespoons (126 grams)

chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

3–4 tablespoons ice water

For the pie

1¹⁄ 3 cups Marshmallow Fluff

¾ cup cream cheese, softened

¹⁄ 8 teaspoon plus ½ teaspoon table salt

1 cup half-and-half

1 tablespoon (1 envelope)

unflavored powdered gelatin

1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

½ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

Freshly whipped cream, for garnish

To make the crust: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar until well combined. Sprinkle the butter cubes on top and use your fingers to work them in (you want to rub your thumb against your fingertips, smearing the butter as you do). Stop when the mixture looks like cornmeal, with some pea-size bits of butter remaining (try to work quickly so the butter doesn’t melt). Sprinkle 3 tablespoons ice water on top and stir with a fork until the dough just begins to come together. If needed, add one more tablespoon ice water.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead just until smooth—three times should do it. Gather into a ball, then press into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 50 minutes and up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400° and set a rack to the middle position. On a floured surface, roll the dough out, working from the center, to a 10-inch circle, about ¹⁄8 -inch thick. Carefully transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie plate and press into the sides. Drape any excess crust over the edge, trim as needed, then fold under and crimp. If you don’t have a favorite decorative crimping technique, you can always simply pinch the crust between your thumb and forefinger at regular intervals around the crust, but I like to make a scalloped edge by holding my right thumb and forefinger in a “U” shape, then poking the crust

between them using my left forefinger.

Use a fork to prick 8 holes in the bottom of the dough. Line the dough with foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake for 18 minutes. Carefully remove the weights and foil, then continue baking until nicely browned, 5 to 10 minutes more. Let cool thoroughly before using.

To make the pie: Using a handheld or standing mixer, beat the Fluff with the cream cheese and ¹⁄8 teaspoon salt until smooth. Pour the mixture into the cooled pie crust and place on a flat surface in the freezer to firm up, at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days (wrap in plastic if freezing for more than 1 hour).

Meanwhile, pour the half-and-half into a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let it soften for 10 minutes.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger,

and remaining ½ teaspoon salt until it just begins to steam. Add the gelatin mixture and whisk until very smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool for 20 minutes, stirring often, then spoon the mixture over the marshmallow layer and smooth with a spatula to level out the top.

Transfer the pie to the refrigerator to chill until firm, at least 4 hours and up to a day. If chilling longer, spray the top of the pie with a very thin film of vegetable oil, then press some plastic wrap against the surface to prevent it from drying out.

Before serving, if desired, take ¼ cup of freshly whipped cream and spoon or pipe it into nickel-size circles around the edge of the pie, then drag a toothpick through the circles to form heart shapes. Serve cold or at room temperature, with or without additional whipped cream. Yields 8 servings.

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The 2020

By Amy Traverso

WITH AIMEE TUCKER AND KATHERINE KEENAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE ST. PIERRE FOOD STYLING BY JOY HOWARD | PROP STYLING BY ANN LEWIS

EIGHT YEARS AGO, WE CREATED

the Yankee Food Awards to honor the artisans whose cheeses, chocolates, jams, and charcuterie have made New England such a great place to live and eat. This year, longing for a bit of armchair travel and mindful of Yankee’s 85th anniversary, we decided to seek out iconic foods from across New England, such as blueberry pie, clam chowder, lobster rolls, and cider doughnuts. Focusing on companies that ship these regional treats around the country, we ordered samples to test. Our goal: to bring the best flavors of New England to you, even if you can’t be here right now.

The winners range from sweets to seafood, from special-occasion splurges to supermarket staples. All would be great to serve at a party or to send as gifts. Happy holidays!

SHARP CHEDDAR

Shelburne Farms

Vermont

For this category, we sought a great all-purpose medium-sharp cheddar. Something buttery and tangy that could shine on a cheese board or elevate a grilled cheese, all at an affordable price. Even after a relatively brief aging, Shelburne’s 6-Month Cheddar stood out for its complex flavor and rich buttercup hue, thanks to the Shelburne farm’s herd of Brown Swiss cows, who spend their warmweather days in grassy meadows overlooking Lake Champlain. store.shelburnefarms.org

SOUTH SHORE BAR PIZZA

Cape Cod Café

Massachusetts

New England is a place where you can find some of the tastiest regional pizza styles in the country (think: coal-fired apizza in New Haven, thick rectangles of Sicilian-style in Boston’s North End), but only one of our favorites was readily available for remote noshing— and fortunately, it’s a winner. Three generations of the Jamoulis family have been slinging South Shore–style bar pies at their Brockton-based mini chain since 1947. At-home options include five varieties, including mushroom and pepperoni, that check all the South Shore bar pizza boxes: perfectly portioned 10-inch round, ultrathin texture, and cheese that extends all the way to a crisp and buttery crust.

capecodcafepizza.com; order at goldbelly.com

CLAM CHOWDER Legal Sea Foods | Massachusetts

The New England clam chowder from this Bostonbased seafood restaurant chain has been served at every U.S. presidential inauguration since 1981. When the Patriots make the Super Bowl, the Massachusetts governor uses it as the wager in the traditional state-vs.-state bet. It’s the go-to order for homesick New England expats. So our expectations

STUFFED QUAHOGS

Cape Cod Stuffed Quahog Company

Massachusetts

The perfect stuffie should have three things: plenty of chopped clam meat, a kick of spice from linguiça or chouriço sausage, and a buttery finish. The stuffies made by Brian and Gina Robinson in their Bourne commercial kitchen win hands down. Their secret? A special sherrybutter sauce that Gina adds to the Ritz cracker–based stuffing. The Robinsons make several styles of stuffed quahogs for restaurants and fish markets around the Cape, so be sure to look for the premium linguiça version (sold by Boston-based seafood distributor Red’s Best).

“Everything is made by hand,” says Brian, who was in food manufacturing and restaurant quality control before he and Gina opened their mom-and-pop shop. “It’s done by people

FRIED CLAMS

Woodman’s | Massachusetts

Bellies or strips? Die-hard fans know there’s only one correct answer when it comes to fried clams—and Woodman’s does, too. Although home cooks may be intimidated by the thought of deep frying (or even by the thought of cooking mollusks), the kit from this 106-yearold Essex restaurant makes the whole process a breeze. The “Chubby’s” fried clam kit includes everything you’ll need for breading, one jar of Woodman’s own tartar sauce, and a generous bag of shucked clams. All you have to do is heat some oil and fry away! Bonus points if you serve your clams in the provided paper boxes for a full fauxfish-shack experience (your kitchen will smell like one, at least!). woodmans.com/shop

LOBSTER ROLL The Clam Shack | Maine

Of all the mail-order lobster rolls we tried, the ones from this Kennebunkport institution not only had the best, most flavorful meat, but also did the best job of approximating the lobster shack experience. Kits come with one or two pounds of tails and claws, Kate’s Homemade Butter (a regional favorite), and the signature Clam Shack bun, which is made by Reilly’s Bakery in nearby Biddeford (no, it’s not a conventional split-top bun, but it’s still darn good). We love the addition of paper boats, wet naps, instructions, and red plastic seafood forks, which feel so authentic you can almost smell the salt air.

theclamshack.net/lobster-roll-kit

BOSTON BROWN BREAD

B&M | Maine

When early American colonists couldn’t produce enough wheat for bread, they adapted their recipes with a blend of wheat, rye, and corn. Later, as molasses became widely available, the bread evolved into a pudding-style steamed loaf. That’s still pretty much the recipe that B&M uses today. The company, which was founded in Portland in 1867, has used the same recipe for decades, and it yields a bread that is just sweet enough and, for many, synonymous with Saturday-night supper. bmbeans.com; order at retailers including vermontcountrystore.com

CIDER DOUGHNUTS

Red Apple Farm

Massachusetts

Hot apple cider has no trustier sidekick than the apple cider doughnut, which in its ideal form possesses a tender, cakelike crumb; a crackly cinnamonsugar coating; and that specific set of spices which, when combined, taste unmistakably like the first brisk day of fall. And while mail-order doughnuts may never beat the ones fresh out of the fryer (likely purchased as a pick-me-up on an afternoon spent wandering through the orchards), Red Apple Farm’s version holds up to the rigors of long-distance travel. Based in Phillipston, Red Apple Farm makes its cider doughnuts fresh daily, year-round, using its own farm-pressed cider. redapplefarm.com

BLUEBERRY PIE

Michele’s Pies

Connecticut

Michele Stuart has won multiple blue ribbons at the National Pie Championship for her apple, blackberry crumb, pumpkin, and chocolate pecan bourbon pies, but we’re here to vouch for her blueberry, which is loaded with fruit, perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, and packed in an ultraflaky crust. Stuart, who opened her namesake pie shop in Norwalk in 2007, is a lifelong baker who learned the craft at her grandmother’s elbow. And while her pies are polished, they have a charmingly homemade feel, even when frozen and shipped across state lines. michelespies.com; order at goldbelly.com

WHOOPIE PIES

Chococoa Baking Company

Massachusetts

When it comes to New England’s handheld desserts, the cream-filled whoopie pie has the power to make anyone feel like a kid again, and Alan Mons and Julie Ganong credit their own sweet childhood memories with inspiring their Newburyport bakery and café. A repeat Yankee Food Award winner (2013), Chococoa’s two-inch mini cakes come three to a package and get their rich, homemade flavor from local, allnatural ingredients with no preservatives. Beyond the classic chocolate-vanilla combination, there are more than a dozen gourmet flavors—including apple with cinnamon cream and chocolate with saltedcaramel cream—that let you build the ideal custom assortment. (There are six glutenfree options, too!) chococoabaking.com

MY New England

HOLIDAY TRADITIONS CONTINUE AT 15-STAR OCEAN HOUSE

November 26–January 1 | Watch Hill, RI

This holiday season will be a magical time in coastal Rhode Island. The iconic Ocean House in Watch Hill, which has earned three Five-Star ratings from Forbes, and it sister hotel, Weekapaug Inn in Weekapaug, will have dozens of “Season by the Sea” holiday celebrations that will spark joy and merriment for people of all ages. Events, classes, brunches, children’s teas, and more are part of what makes this season so special. Social distancing and safety protocols will be in place. Visit OceanHouseEvents.com or call 866.916.7914.

HOTEL VIKING NUTCRACKER TEA & TOY DRIVE

December 6, 2020 | Newport, RI

Celebrate the holiday season with the Nutcracker Tea service at One Bellevue. Enjoy delectable bites and seasonal teas. Admission is $45; children under 12 get in free with a toy donation. For reservations, email info@hotelviking.com.

HotelViking.com

THE NANTUCKET HOTEL + RESORT

November–December 2020 | Nantucket, MA

Bring this issue’s Nantucket travel story to life and celebrate the season of gratitude at The Nantucket Hotel + Resort, the island’s only year-round premier hotel, where you can enjoy cozy outdoor dining and socially distanced Thanksgiving, Christmas Stroll, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve dining experiences — reimagined this year in the grand ballroom.

TheNantucketHotel.com

Celebrating the people, destinations, and experiences that make the region and Yankee Magazine so unique. Follow along @YANKEEMAGAZINE #MYNEWENGLAND

CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS AT MASHPEE COMMONS

November & December | Mashpee, MA

Shop, dine, and play at Mashpee Commons, an open-air shopping destination comprised of over 100 businesses, this holiday season! Events include the annual tree lighting ceremony and safe appearances by Santa throughout the month of December.

Be among the fi rst 100 shoppers to mention this Yankee spotlight at a shop within the Commons and receive a complimentary Cape Cod-themed gift with a minimum purchase of $50. Valid on new in-store purchases through December 31, 2020.

Visit MashpeeCommons.com or @mashpeecommons on Facebook and Instagram for event details.

Holiday Giveaway

Coastal Comfort

Give the perfect New England gift (or bring some coastal flavor into your home) with this specially curated prize! Featuring an On the Road Again bag, the new book by Liz Gershman and Carrie Nieman Culpepper, and a cozy ChappyWrap blanket to keep you warm this holiday season.

Nantucket

Enter at NewEngland.com/HolidayGiveaway nantucketclassicstylebook.com chappywrap.com • ontheroadagainbags.com

NANTUCKET, MASSACHUSETTS

A SUMMER ISLAND WARMS TO THE OFF-SEASON WITH ONE VERY SPECIAL HOLIDAY WEEKEND.

BY JOE BILLS • PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIZABETH CECIL

this page : a bedecked dory brings cheer to the Easy Street Boat Basin. opposite page : Scenes from around the island, including a batch of Downyflake doughnuts, a breakfast plate at the Nantucket Hotel & Resort, classic duds at Murray’s Toggery Shop, and gifts for the whale lover at Sylvia Antiques.

Sure, more than half its homes are shuttered for winter, and some stores and restaurants close up shop when the crowds depart. Yet the slower pace makes Nantucket an idyllic getaway from late fall onward, its popularity peaking again in the holiday season, when its famed Christmas Stroll weekend fills the streets.

There are several ways to get to Nantucket, just 30 miles off Cape Cod, but none are simpler (or easier on the wallet) than the scenic onehour jaunt from Hyannis on the Grey Lady IV, a high-speed ferry operated by Hy-Line Cruises. The ferries run on a reduced schedule in the winter months, so plan ahead.

FRIDAY

It’s less than a mile from the ferry dock on Straight Wharf to the Nantucket Hotel & Resort, our chosen lodging, and because cars are at a premium on the island, a reservation here includes shuttle service, which makes for an effortless arrival. While there certainly are other worthy overnight options, the Nantucket—originally opened as the Point Breeze Hotel in 1891 and recently renovated by current owners Mark and Gwenn Snider—is hard to beat for ease, history, and classic charm.

Once you’ve settled in, it’s time to find some sustenance. Remember that no matter where you are on Nantucket, you’re never more than four miles from the sea, and while that typically keeps the weather on the mild side (by New England standards,

Bustling beaches, sea captains’ houses, cobblestone streets lined with shops, and 13,000-plus acres of preserved land have long made Nantucket one of New England’s most iconic summer playgrounds. But the island doesn’t go away when the summer folk do.

At the Nantucket Hotel & Resort, a 1934 bus stands ready to shuttle guests to the ferry ( opposite ), while the glittering front entrance sets the mood for a holiday stay.

at least), changes happen quickly and winter breezes can be more than a little brisk, so dress in layers.

The island is made for meandering, and a 10-minute walk back toward the wharf takes you through the retail district, past shops and restaurants. Some eateries require reservations, but don’t fret if you haven’t made one: We had no trouble getting a table at B-ACK Yard BBQ, where chef Fred Bisaillon and his crew serve up meltin-your-mouth barbecue topped with a choice of sweet, hot, gold, and vinegar sauces, which can be mixed and matched to your taste. (Can’t decide? Try the pulled pork shoulder with an even mix of hot and sweet sauces.) The Southern vibe carries over to the cocktail menu, whose concoctions include

the Georgia on My Mind, a mix of bourbon, peach, and basil, and the Stevie Ray, a vodka drink with jalapeño, lemon, and cucumber.

A stroll back to the hotel puts a capper on the first day. Among the fringe benefits of an off-season stay are the portable fire pits on the porch, which invite guests to pull up a wicker chair and admire the evening for a while.

SATURDAY

The Downyflake is a Nantucket institution, serving breakfast, lunch, and, most important, fresh doughnuts since the 1930s. Its mid-island location is a bit out of the way, but if weather permits, the half-hour walk is just what the conscience ordered to compensate for those warm sugar doughnuts.

Returning to town to visit the inviting shops of Main Street, start with a classic: scoring a pair of Nantucket Reds at Murray’s Toggery Shop, founded in 1945. At Sylvia Antiques, located in the historic Pacific Club building, you’ll want to linger over authentic Nantucket baskets and all manner of other vintage treasures. And a stop at Mitchell’s Book Corner provides the opportunity not only to pick up the latest best-seller or a classic read, but also to explore a well-stocked local books section, where a wealth of island knowledge awaits. As you work your way back toward the hotel, make

from left : Strolling Nantucket’s famed cobblestone streets; nautical decor at Sylvia Antiques, which has been owned by the same island family for more than 90 years.

The Tide Pool Starfish

If you love the ocean and you sail, motor, kayak or row a boat, you should know port and starboard You should know it instantly in an ocean emergency and have it right, absolutely right, every time, with no hesitation or equivocation of mind Here

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World Tourmaline Butterfly Necklaces

This is a hoot! It’s fun, playful, and such a surprise Maine is the wild blueberry capital of the world So when we discovered this new stone we knew we just had to have it It’s a salt and pepper granite with little blue azurite spheres nestled within Set in sterling silver with 18" chain Every piece is different Necklaces $165-$295 depending on size & blueberry distribution

Compass Rose

These world tourmaline butterflies are the prettiest we’ve seen The guy who makes them understands living fairies. He absolutely knows how to cut, blend, match He knows where to put and place colors, how much pink and how much green I would love to have these butterflies in my garden.

These are world butterflies made from the world’s most magical gem, tourmaline.

The compass rose is a reminder we are not merely travelers but are the navigators of our destiny.

The compass rose has appeared beautifully illustrated on maps since the 1300’s The term “rose” comes from the layered compass points resembling the petals of the well-known flower

Small gold, silver rim and chain

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Small, all gold, 18" chain

Small gold, 4 diamonds, 18" chain

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sure to detour to Current Vintage on Easy Street, where retro clothing and curated wines make for an odd but wonderful pairing.

A few minutes’ walk from Easy Street brings you to the Nantucket Whaling Museum, a monument to the sailors who once made the island the whaling capital of the world, the industries their dangerous work supported, and the families they left behind while at sea. From the 46-footlong sperm whale skeleton to the massive lever press from the Hadwen & Barney Oil and Candle Factory, the museum’s exhibits bring to life the large-scale realities of the hard labor and incredible sacrifices that built the island.

Even in the off-season, Nantucket offers up more great dining options than can be experienced in one weekend, so prepare for tough choices. At Breeze, conveniently located in the Nantucket Hotel & Resort, chef

Albert Cannito creates classic dishes from local ingredients—and since November and December are scalloping months here, delicious seafood abounds. You’ll want to savor the seafood stew (mussels, scallops, cod, and lobster simmered in tomato broth), but if your tastes are geared inland, the crispy fried Brussels sprouts and mushroom ragout gnocchi are pretty darn good, too.

For evening entertainment, check out the lineups at the film and cultural center Dreamland and the White Heron Theatre, where A Nantucket Christmas Carol (which reimagines Ebenezer Scrooge as a whaling captain) is a seasonal staple. Side note:

from top : A welcome sight for local bibliophiles on Main Street, Mitchell’s Book Corner also has a sister shop, Nantucket Bookworks, just a few blocks away; a detail of a cetacean mobile at the Nantucket Whaling Museum.

TRAVEL NOTE: Since many event organizers and local businesses are adjusting their operations in response to Covid-19 health concerns, please contact them directly or check their websites for updates before making travel plans.

Walk-Behind

Behind the Dreamland, a tiny park is being built to honor children’s television icon Fred Rogers, whose family summered in Madaket for more than 40 years. The park’s centerpiece will be a life-size statue of “Mister Rogers”—dressed in his famous cardigan sweater—by sculptor and summer resident Seward Johnson. Don’t miss the photo op!

SUNDAY

Pack your bags early and arrange for them to be dropped off at the ferry, then take some time to lounge on this final island morning—maybe

LET’S STROLL

On Nantucket, the first weekend of December is the Christmas Stroll, a holiday celebration filled with events that range from the Festival of Trees at the Whaling Museum to Santa’s arrival by Coast Guard cutter. The tradition dates back to 1973, when, in an attempt to keep holiday shopping dollars from escaping to mainland malls, Nantucket’s shops extended their hours on the first Friday of December. Now a weekend-long event, the Stroll sees the downtown decorated with hundreds of trees, and caroling, performances, crafts, and special sales popping up all over. For updates on the 2020 event, go to nantucketchamber.org

bringing one of your new books to Handlebar Café on Washington Street and lingering over a latte or a terrific nitro breakfast tea.

There’s more to Nantucket than just the retail district, of course, and there’s no better way to see it all than with seventh-generation islander Gail Nickerson Johnson of Gail’s Tours, who offers both standard and customized tours lasting a little under two hours. From the gorgeous inner-island preserve to historic structures like the Old Gaol, the Greater Light, and the Old Mill, she’ll share plenty of backstory and insider lore, and point out the homes of the rich and famous along the way. The most memorable stop, without question, is on Nantucket’s east end, where the rapid erosion of 90-foot coastal bluffs is a reminder of how vulnerable an island’s beauty is to the power of the sea.

To put an exclamation point on your island experience, head to the Nautilus, where the small-plates menu includes tempura oyster tacos, blistered shishito peppers, and Nantucket bay scallop tostadas, made with scallops that very likely were still in the water when you arrived. From the restaurant, it’s just one final short stroll to the wharf where the Grey Lady awaits.

from top : Patrons gather at the Nautilus, where dishes are designed for sharing; a view of Main Street, which retains its local flavor thanks to a ban on big chain stores.

Year-Round Shopping,

Four-Season Destination!

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing.

Year-Round Shopping,

Year-Round Shopping,

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling. Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees. Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and ear’s Eve Fireworks. Concerts.

Four-Season Destination!

Holiday Shopping Dining & Lodging Santa’s Hut. “Last Night” Special Events. Cozy Fireplaces. Ice Fishing. Ice Skating.

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling.

Year-Round Shopping,

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling. Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees. Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and ear’s Eve Fireworks. Concerts.

Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees.

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling.

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling. Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees.

Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees. Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and

Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and ear’s Eve Fireworks. Concerts.

Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and ear’s Eve Fireworks. Concerts. Ask for a FRee Brochure! at wolfeborochamber.com

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling. Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees. Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and

603-569-2200 • 800-516-5324

Christmas Tree Farms

BY KIM KNOX BECKIUS

hristmas, the Grinch learned, “doesn’t come from a store.” Here in New England, it often comes from farms— specifically, Christmas tree farms, which offer an adventure, a gift-shopping spree, a chance to support local producers, and perhaps the start of a cherished holiday tradition.

Dzen Tree Farm South Windsor, CT

You know Dasher and Dancer… and you’ll know Belle and Tuukka, too, when you turn off Barber Hill Road at

the 15-foot-tall reindeer sign. Seeing live reindeer up close is a rare treat that crystallizes how real holiday wonder can be for tiny believers. The beauty of this choose-and-cut farm isn’t just in the add-ons (visits with Santa, mulled cider in the Rockin’ Reindeer Café). Nor is it in the meticulous care that every blue spruce, balsam, or Fraser fir receives, as if it’s the lone tree and not one of thousands spread over 60-plus acres. It’s sharing the hunt for the perfect pine with loved ones who can’t hike, a gift made possible by roadways that allow for drive-by tree browsing. 860-648-2233; dzentreefarm.com

Vandervalk Farm & Winery Mendon, MA

You haven’t seen Christmas glee until you’ve seen kids react to a tree shaker, which turns fresh-cut firs into animated performers as it dislodges loose needles. Like so much at this 10-acre-plus farm (which is guarded by a gigantic Santa rescued from the now-defunct Rhode Island company Tinsel Town), the shimmying gizmo creates an atmosphere of magic that masks all the trial and error that goes into farming a rocky plot. The Vandervalk family’s niftiest trick, though, is turning their Christmas tree farm into

Where to bring home a fresh-cut evergreen, New England–made gifts, and a sleigh-load of holiday memories.

Tree hunters make their triumphant return from the fields at Vandervalk Farm & Winery in Mendon, Massachusetts.

Baby Pure H a Taste

Blue Heron Full Moon and Returning Tide Necklace

Tall blue gray

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I think this simple rustic piece showing waves sweeping ashore, with its gnarly rough night background antiqued black, and with a big old moon hanging in the sky low to the horizon, is one of the most romantic pieces we have

The moon glows blue in the night sky, the waves are high polished silver I can hear the waves I can smell the salt air, Moonstone Moonlight on the Sea Pendant 18″ Sterling Silver chain...X4112...$195

The honey I poured on my toast this morning was once in a flower in a summer field The honey was tended to by a bee and its 10,000 sisters and involved a million miles of flight to create this jar of honey

In a grand performance choreographed by nature, the contents of this jar represent an act so fine, so precise, happening every day all across the land, it really was an act of pure magic

Honey Gold Baby Bee & Diamond necklace…..X4163…..$785

Island Dream Necklace

Window to the World

Sapphire, Emerald & Diamond Necklace

Just these colors are enough of a story. Obviously, there’s more.

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“Life's a Beach”, the bumper sticker says And if you live at the beach, high and low tide create the rhythm of the day What you do is different depending on whether the tide is in or out Silver waves rise and fall against a dark sky

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Time goes to a place where the four winds are free

To meet and play in the tree tops and dance with the full moon

Listen closely for the faint familiar music you hear…

The trees are whispering their island dreams into the night wind

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CJ CROSS CJ CROSS

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a year-round destination for artisanal wines made with blueberries and other fruits grown on-site and nearby. 508478-8733; vandervalkfarm.com

Balsam Ridge Raymond, ME

Wood smoke and balsam zest tickle your nose in this picture-perfect setting. Bring snowshoes and venture behind the scenes, trekking through 15 acres of neatly groomed Christmas trees and along trails that thread through the sugarbush, which is tapped each spring to fill the farm’s sugarhouse gift shop with signature products like bourbon barrel–aged maple syrup and hickory-maple-smoked cheese. An invigorating walk makes for rosy-cheeked photos with red-jacketed horses and chainsaw-carved props. And it’ll boost your appreciation for the warmth of hot cocoa while you wait for your custom-decorated wreath. 207655-4474; balsamridgechristmas.com

Emery Farm Durham, NH

Load up snow tubes or saucers and rope for securing your tree, and spend an unplugged day zooming downhill and soaking up holiday spirit on the New Hampshire Seacoast. There’s a townowned sledding slope that sits across Route 4 from Emery Farm, which dates to 1660 and claims to be the country’s oldest agricultural business owned by one family. Decked out in hundreds of Franconia Notch–grown trees lined up for the choosing, and offering goats and bunnies to pat, the farm’s newly built market-café retains the nostalgic feel of the farm stand that preceded it. On the menu: coffee and tea from Portsmouth’s White Heron, sugary cider doughnuts, and harvest-inspired soups and sandwiches. In the shop: New England–made sustainable and gourmet gifts for every stocking, plus a free handmade ornament to go with your tree. 603-742-8495; emeryfarm.com

Christmas Trees of Vermont Springfield, VT

Hop off the Jolly Trolley or the fire truck in the midst of 60 mountainsheltered acres of fragrant Fraser firs, and begin your search for “the one.” Here on the fertile banks of the Connecticut River, where Santa’s House looks right at home, the Kurek family nurtures trees that are so healthy the needles seem guaranteed to hold on forever. Bonfires and the Christmas Cottage’s fireplaces ensure toes won’t freeze; food trucks and a bake sale keep appetites sated; and a playground and sledding hill amuse little ones. There’s always a handmade annual ornament to collect, a new larger-than-life photo op for your Christmas cards, and free hot chocolate for everyone. 802-885-9597; christmastreesofvt.com

For more inspiration on where to find the perfect tree, see p. 94.

Jimmy is all of the patients, doctors, researchers, event participants, and supporters of the Jimmy Fund. Like Carly, who didn’t let her cancer stop her from dancing. Your donation helps change the way the world treats cancer. Because we’re all Jimmy.

Donate now at iamJimmy.org/carly

FAVORITE CUT-YOUR-OWN TREE FARMS IN EVERY STATE

Our editors have put together a sampling of the many locally owned businesses offering cut-your-own trees this holiday season. To find more or to share your recommendations, go to newengland.com/tree-farms And since some farms may be changing their operations in light of Covid-19, check with them for the latest details on visiting before you go.

CONNECTICUT

ALLEN HILL FARM, Brooklyn. A sixthgeneration family farm, Allen Hill grows trees including blue spruce and Douglas, Fraser, balsam, and concolor fir on 100-plus acres. Hop aboard the wagon for a ride to the field where you can cut your tree; afterward, browse the craft barn and enjoy hot mulled cider and cookies. allenhillfarm.com

ANGEVINE FARM, Warren. This c. 1868 farm in the Litchfield Hills has over 10 varieties of fir, pine, and spruce on offer; harvest your own or choose from a precut selection. For a little retail therapy, visit the Christmas Barn, which not only has ornaments and gifts but also a restored 1920s theater pipe organ to marvel at. angevinefarm.com

HARTIKKA TREE FARMS, Voluntown. Established in 1955, Hartikka Tree Farms has grown to a full-time operation on two farms. Among the CYO and precut varieties you’ll find here are Fraser, Canaan, and Nordmann firs and Colorado, Oriental, and Meyer spruces. Weekend visitors can warm up with hot chocolate, doughnuts, and even wood-fired pizza. treeman2.com

JONES FAMILY FARMS, Shelton. Nearly 200 acres here are devoted to Christmas trees: blue spruce, Fraser fir, Douglas fir, white pine, and more. Select a precut tree, or cut your own and earn a collectible pewter ornament by Woodbury Pewter. Visit the Barnyard Shops for trimmings and gifts, which might include a bottle from the farm’s own winery. jonesfamilyfarms.com

MAPLE HOLLOW TREE FARM, New Hartford. The Steadman family established this farm in New Hartford’s Nepaug River valley in the ’70s, and today they offer a variety of sustainably raised species—cut-your-own and living trees—on their 20-plus-acre property. Precut trees round out the offerings, along with trimmings from the gift shop. maplehollowtreefarm.com

MAPLE LANE FARMS, Preston. Endless rows of balsam, Fraser, Canaan, and concolor firs punctuate the beautiful surroundings at Maple Lane, a 325-acre farm in southeastern Connecticut. Harvest your favorite and staffers help bring it in; precut trees and

wreaths, garland, and kissing balls are also for sale. maplelane.com

PAPROSKI’S TREE FARM, Newtown. Part of the larger Castle Hill Farm, Paproski’s invites you to hike through 20 scenic acres of Douglas fir, Norway spruce, and more, and then, after hauling your treasure back to the car, tuck into hot cider and cookies. Wreaths, sprays, and swags are on offer, all handmade by the Paproski family. castlehillfarm.net

SYME FAMILY FARM, Broad Brook. Just a short drive from Hartford is this cozy spot for a family outing. The CYO choices are simple (they grow balsam, Canaan, and Fraser) and so are the pleasures: warming up with cocoa; perusing goat’s milk soap, honey, and other local products; and meeting the farm’s “Christmas calf.” symefamilyfarm.com

MAINE

FINESTKIND TREE FARMS, Dover-Foxcroft Family owned and operated since 1967, Finestkind has won numerous grand champion honors in the state Christmas tree contest, including in 2019. Precut trees are available daily, or head out into fields of fir on the weekends to select your own. Find handcrafted ornaments and more in the gift shop. finestkindtreefarms.com

HOLMES TREE FARM, Kennebunk. More than a third of this historic 65-acre farm is devoted to Christmas trees, mainly balsam fir, which you can cut yourself or buy precut before heading to the country gift shop for goodies. Other traditional extras have included fresh cider doughnuts, mulled cider, and Santa visits. holmestreefarm.com

NUTKIN KNOLL FARM, Newburgh. The maples flow and the evergreens grow at Len and Nancy Price’s 100-acre homestead, which means holiday visitors can load up on maple syrup along with a choose-and-cut fir or spruce. Katahdin sheep and other farm animals join the welcoming committee; an antique post-and-beam barn hosts the gift shop. maine-christmas-trees.com

MOOSE HILL FARM, Fayette. Perfect for those who like a rustic, cozy setting, this 10-acre family farm invites cut-your-own enthusiasts to roam its tree fields (balsam fir, concolor fir, blue spruce) and load up on homemade pickles, jams, and jellies in its gift shop. Precut trees, wreaths, and ornaments also on offer. moosehillfarm.com

THE OLD FARM CHRISTMAS PLACE, Cape Elizabeth. An original c. 1790 farmhouse and a post-and-beam retail shop lend atmospheric charm to this balsam fir tree farm just outside Portland. Past years have also seen wagon rides and marshmallow roasting add to the merriment. oldfarmchristmas.com

PIPER MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS TREES, Newburgh. Instagram inspiration abounds at this beloved 185-acre farm (think: baby-blue vintage Ford farm truck, horsedrawn hayrides), as do beautiful balsam firs, ornaments, gift baskets, wreaths, and homemade doughnuts. pipermtn.com

PLEASANT VIEW TREE FARM, Hodgdon. Its greenhouse and nursery make Pleasant View popular with Aroostook County gardeners, but its balsam firs and wreaths

Without the Velvet Ropes

VERMONT

BISHOP FARM, Springfield. Although it does a robust mail-order business, this former dairy farm invites cut-your-own devotees with thousands of balsam and Fraser firs. The Bishop family also makes beautiful Christmas wreaths—their handiwork has even graced Okemo Mountain Resort’s landmark clock tower. Precut trees available, too. thebishopfarm.com

ISHAM FAMILY FARM, Williston. A short jaunt from Burlington brings you to a c. 1871 family farm that attracts city dwellers with rural delights such as maple sugaring, PYO berries, a regional farmers’ market, and of course, Christmas trees. Theirs are pesticide-free balsam firs, with additional precut options. ishamfamilyfarm.com

MOFFATT’S TREE FARM, Craftsbury. This fourth-generation family business tends to some 120,000 Christmas trees on parcels of land dotted throughout the Northeast Kingdom, with about 8,000 prime Fraser and balsam firs on offer at their chooseand-cut farm in Craftsbury. Got a big ceiling? They specialize in larger trees (eight feet and up). vtxmastrees.com

PLEASANT VALLEY TREE FARM, Bennington

A mere five-minute drive from Bennington’s grand Four Chimneys Inn—which for years has gotten its own Christmas tree here—Pleasant Valley grows 30,000-plus firs, pines, and spruces on 80 acres with views of the Green Mountains. Harvest your own or load up a precut, and don’t miss shopping at the holiday gift barn. pleasantvalleytrees.com

PURINTON MAPLE AND TREE FARM, Huntington. Veteran maple producers whose syrup lends a bit of local flavor to brews from Lawson’s Finest Liquids, the Purinton family changes hats for the holidays and opens their fields of 14,000-plus prime balsams for eager tree hunters. Shop for sweet treats and ornate wreaths too. purintontreefarm.com

TESTER’S VERMONT CHRISTMAS TREES, Barton. The Testers credit the 2,000-foot elevation of their Northeast Kingdom farm with helping to create healthy, hardy Fraser and balsam firs, which are available as precut, easy-to-take-home trees or as chooseand-cut options. vermontchristmastrees.com

WALKER FARM’S ELYSIAN HILLS, Dummerston. Certified-organic evergreens are the star attraction at this idyllic property comprising 138 acres of conserved land just north of Brattleboro. It’s owned by Jack and Karen Manix, who run the nearby organic farm stand and garden center Walker Farm, a destination for green thumbs across Vermont and beyond. elysianhillstreefarm.com

WERNER’S CHRISTMAS TREE FARM, Middlebury. Make like Governor Phil Scott, who visited here in 2019, and harvest your own tree on the Werner family’s farm (precut options available too). Among the other enticements: house-made maple syrup and honey, wreaths and other decorations, and the chance to see their antique model train and meet Twister the Christmas pony. wernertreefarm.com

Photo: Katie Pritchard

Photo Liz Belcher

CHRISTMAS

Christmas spirit comes ashore in Kennebunkport as Santa and Mrs. Claus make their way from the dock to the Boathouse Waterfront Hotel, where their fans have lined up to greet them.

MAINE COAST

WHEN IT COMES TO MERRYMAKING, FEW TOWNS IN AMERICA CAN HOLD A HOLIDAY CANDLE TO KENNEBUNKPORT.

BY MEG LUKENS NOONAN | PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICOLE WOLF

t’s only 7:20 p.m. in the Old Vines Wine Bar party tent, and already the ladies in the reindeer suits are kicking up their hooves. No matter that every head toss threatens to dislodge their light-up antlers or that each hip swirl tilts red wine close to the lips of the clear plastic cups they’re holding. These women are giving it everything they’ve got—and so is the band, digging in now to “Jingle Bell Rock.” I’m not quite ready to hit the dance floor, but I’m getting there. After all, it’s Christmastime in Kennebunkport. If I’ve learned anything since I arrived, it’s this: When it comes to embracing the holiday season, the good people of this southern Maine seacoast town are fully and unabashedly committed—and they want you to be, too.

I’d only known Kennebunkport, a village of restored 18th- and 19th-century buildings on the tidal Kennebunkport River, as a bustling summer place with stellar eat-inthe-rough lobster shacks and rocky, kayak-worthy coves. But now that its Christmas Prelude, a two-week volunteerrun festival, had put it on America’s don’t-miss list, I set off for a mid-December visit. I envisioned a weekend sampling the quiet pleasures of an off-season resort: a craft fair, maybe a carol sing, a corner table in a snug seaside bistro. And to be sure, I found those things, but I also found a buoyant, roving block party—part Whoville, part Mardi Gras.

“There is a no-holdsbarred atmosphere during Prelude,” said Michelle Rose, co-owner with her husband, Chris Larochelle, of Minka, a boutique showcasing their own art and accessories designs, as well as the work of other local artisans. I’d wandered into their pretty shop when I first arrived in town. “People

When Christmas Prelude rolls around, Kennebunkport lobsterman Mike Perkins ( top left) has the honor of giving Santa and Mrs. Claus a lift through the harbor. And while the Kringles are the stars of the show ( bottom center ), there’s plenty else on offer in this seaside town, including visiting the Adams Family Christmas Tree Farm ( bottom left), shopping for gifts at Farm + Table ( top middle ), and just soaking up the winter scenery.

who wouldn’t normally go out dressed silly come here in big groups. They’re in good moods, they’re happy. It’s meant to be joyful.”

And joyful it was—especially at twilight in Dock Square, the village center, just beyond Minka’s front door. Speakers blared sing-along Christmas standards. Hundreds of people—in snowflake sweaters and elf costumes and head-to-toe tartan—surrounded a giant spruce that was hung with colorful wooden buoys and topped with a cutout lobster, to await its official lighting. No one seemed to mind that a cold drizzle had started to fall or that this was actually the re-lighting of the town tree; cheeky Kennebunkport does it on two consecutive Friday nights during Prelude.

“When I heard they were going to light it twice, I thought it was the dumbest thing,” a shopkeeper confided in me later. “But it works. People love it.”

People also love the harborside fireworks that follow the tree lighting. I could have enjoyed them from the Boathouse Waterfront Hotel, my nautical-chic digs for the weekend, just around the corner from Dock Square. I had an airy corner room with two balconies overlooking

the river and its marina. But I did one better and booked a spot on a working lobster boat so I could see the display from the water.

I walked across the low bridge that links Kennebunkport to the Lower Village of Kennebunk, and then made my way down a ramp to the Nor’easter, a 42-foot lobster boat helmed by 58-year-old Mike Perkins. His local roots run deep; his ancestors have fished these waters for 200 years. Except for Prelude weekends, when he runs a water taxi service, Captain Mike spends his winters tending lobster traps some 10 miles offshore. In summer, he offers deep-sea fishing outings, charter trips, onboard parties— even ash scatterings at sea.

“As a working fisherman, you have to diversify,” said his first mate and “shore captain,” Shelley Wigglesworth, as she handed out pretzel rods and offered shots of blueberry brandy.

We had a little time before the fireworks began, so we motored into the dark toward the open Atlantic, about a half mile to the

counterclockwise from far left : Santa and Mrs. Claus (Butch McCall and Cheryll Pendergast) greet the crowd; Dock Square, home of the lobster-topped town tree; listening to live music at the Old Vines Wine Bar party tent.

south. Mist enveloped us, fuzzing the lights of the sprawling Nonantum Resort, where the annual Fire & Ice party was under way. The fund-raiser, featuring bonfires, music, and ice sculptures (including an ice luge that sends perfectly chilled martinis down its chute), sold out its 3,000 tickets in 28 minutes.

I looked down into the ink-dark water, eddied with a falling tide, and saw in that maelstrom a kind of portal into Kennebunkport’s storied past. In the 1600s, the first European settlers built sawmills on this river. By the late 18th century, that timber had helped transform the town into a major shipbuilding center—and made local schooner captains and traders rich. In 1872, a group of Boston businessmen purchased five miles of rocky coastline just east of the mouth of the river and called it Cape Arundel. Grand hotels and summer “cottages” went up. Among the new homes was one built by George H. Walker; his rambling shingle-style mansion on a wave-lashed promontory would become known as the Summer White House after Walker’s namesake grandson, George H.W. Bush, took office in 1989. (Members of the Bush family still spend time there and have been known to show up at Prelude events.) The arrival of rail service brought city dwellers north to take in the restorative salt air and to race canoes on the river, the popular activity of the day. Native tribe members made and sold birch-bark and canvas canoes from workshops on the banks of the river into the early 20th century.

Captain Mike swung the boat around and headed back toward town. I asked him if it was tough to fish all win ter. “If you put on the right clothes, it’s OK,” he said. Later he added, somewhat cryptically, “A good day of fishing is coming home on the same boat you left on.”

The first chrysanthemum-shaped colors exploded in the sky, illuminating a silhouetted, cheering crowd on the bridge. Each booming report added a low layer of pale smoke to the moisture-laden air. After the finale, I disembarked and found myself swept along in another tide—this one in a sea of Bruins jerseys and blinking bulb necklaces, L.L. Bean parkas and Santa hats. I was borne up Chase Hill and into the Batson River Brewing & Distilling tasting room, set in an 1825 house where coffee-colored walls, deep leather sofas, old fishing reels, and paintings of hounds suggested a snug English hunting lodge. At the packed first-level bar, I called out an order for a beer made with local hops, which I had selected for the pure poetry of its description on the menu: “Notes of dry crackers and hay, bright and bitter marmalade, orange blossom and pine pitch.”

In the morning, I found serenity a few miles out of town in the compact fishing

clockwise from top left : Winter beauty in the fishing village of Cape Porpoise; Matt Dyer grills up sausages at Batson River Brewing & Distilling; lobster traps transformed into a Tannenbaum in Cape Porpoise; a 1952 Ford pickup owned by H.B. Provisions carries the Clauses through town, as a lobster escort (Natasha Wormwood) keeps pace.

Celebrations by the Sea

From lobster trap trees to Santa’s arrival by boat, coastal Christmas parties are a hallmark of New England’s holiday season. In addition to Christmas Prelude and Nantucket’s Christmas Stroll [p. 76], here are a few other merry meet-ups by the sea. NOTE: Be sure to doublecheck event details before making travel plans, as there may be schedule changes or postponements* in light of Covid-19.

Bristol is a town that believes in making the season last, and its Christmas Festival runs well into December. But two highlights are the pre-Thanksgiving Preview Weekend (Nov. 20–21), which invites shopping, dining, and strolling downtown, and the Grand Illumination (Dec. 5), when Santa arrives, the tree is lighted, and a huge snowflake over Hope Street blazes to life. christmasbristolri.com

ROCKLAND, ME

The world’s largest lobster trap tree, rising more than three stories tall and topped with a five-foot fiberglass lobster, is the centerpiece of the Festival of Lights (Nov. 27–29), which also offers shopping and arts events, wagon rides, a parade, and Santa’s arrival via a Coast rocklandmainstreet.org

The holiday season kicks off Nov. 28 with Santa cruising in on a festive red tugboat, followed by the tree lighting in Mystic River Park and a glittering lighted boat parade. Just a few days later, downtown Mystic hosts a holiday stroll amid hundreds of luminarias (Dec. 1). mysticchamber.org

OGUNQUIT, ME

When Christmas by the Sea comes around (Dec. 11–13), count on this beach town to show up with bells on. Past highlights have included tasting events, tree lightings, concerts, and of course Santa’s arrival by lobster boat, followed by a parade from Perkins Cove to the Main Beach. chamber.ogunquit.org

PORTSMOUTH, NH

For more than 15 years, Portsmouth has brightened the snowy season with a citywide, monthlong party called Vintage Christmas. Signature attractions have ranged from candlelight strolls at Strawbery Banke to a gingerbread house contest and free trolley rides. Check the website for the latest on this year’s event. vintagechristmasnh.org

BOOTHBAY & BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME

Coastal Maine Botanical Garden’s annual lights extravaganza, “Gardens Aglow,” is a big lure during the Boothbay Lights festival, but also look for a lighted boat parade, the Festival of Trees, and fireworks. Check the website for the latest on this year’s event. boothbaylights.com

*As of press time, the popular Christmas in Newport, RI, was on hold until 2021. Go to christmasinnewport.org for updates.

Reruns don’t get much merrier than the Kennebunkport tree lighting, which dazzles the Dock Square crowd on two consecutive Friday nights during Prelude.

village of Cape Porpoise, Kennebunkport’s original English settlement. From my sunny window seat at Musette, a bright bistro set in a white clapboard house, I could see the distinctive facade of Atlantic Hall, the century-old fire station turned community center and library. Just out of view was what is surely Cape Porpoise’s most Instagrammed attraction: a Christmas tree made of weathered lobster traps.

Musette opened in 2017, after Jonathan Cartwright, the executive chef at Kennebunk’s posh White Barn Inn, took over the Wayfarer Restaurant, an unfussy institution for nearly 60 years. Regulars fretted that the celebrated finedining chef would transform their beloved hangout. But they needn’t have worried: The stools and lunch counter are still there, as are the pale wood shiplap walls and the blue cushioned banquettes. Even local legend and longtime hostess Bert Austin, known for her saucy good humor— and fried-egg earrings—stayed on. It was important to Selena Gearinger, the warm 31-year-old whom Cartwright

“When Prelude is done, locals are all we have,” she said when she stopped by my table as I was polishing off my eggs Benedict with Musette’s signature corned beef hash. “But I do love this time of year—the outfits and the crazy hats. And everyone is so positive. It’s people who just want to be together. We get big families who come every year, and they make reservations for next year while they are here. I think my favorite thing is that after the carol sing at the church up the road, people stroll down for cookies and hot choco-

I walked past that 163-year-old white church and crossed the street to Farm + Table, a gift shop set in a freshly painted red barn. Inside, I found owners Bruce and Liz Andrews, busily restocking shelves. The couple had vacationed in Kennebunkport for 25 years when they spotted the old barn in 2013, and knew it was the space they’d been

Bruce knows how much effort goes into Prelude. He is a member of the Kennebunkport Business Council, the group that puts on the festival every year and marshals hundreds of volunteers to deck the town with greenery, red

“Christmas Prelude started 37 years ago as a way for businesses to give back to locals, and it grew into this giant monster,” he said with a laugh. “When we first opened, we were told, ‘Be ready for Prelude weekends. You’re going to need a doorman.’ We were shocked when we had a line of people waiting to come in. I saw locals in the line and said, ‘What are you doing here? You can come anytime!’ But

I could see why. The old beamed barn, made fragrant with fir tree reed diffusers (among the store’s best-sellers, Liz told me), was the perfect rustic showcase for their carefully curated wares, most in neutral or wood tones and

produced by some 400 small-batch regional makers. I was tempted by the lathe-turned maple rolling pins and striped linen tea towels. I left with three soft-sculpture bearded gnomes, plus a box of salted caramels, which I told myself would make a nice little host gift.

The caramels were gone by the time I pulled into the Adams Family Christmas Tree Farm on a rural stretch of road about a mile from Dock Square. Wayne Adams ambled out of a daffodil-yellow farmhouse to greet me.

“It was a hobby that got out of control,” the 78-year-old told me as we surveyed the crop of fir trees he started planting 11 years ago on land that has been in his family for generations. “I’m a lawyer, but this allows me to say I live on a working farm. There are only two in Kennebunkport.”

I asked him how he learned the business.

“I joined the Maine Christmas Tree Association. They are real Mainers. They didn’t talk to me for three years,” he said, keeping a straight face. “I understand. I’m a Mainer.”

Back in town, I headed out for more shopping. In Daytrip Society, on Dock Square, I spotted Sara Fitz recycledsail bags adorned with local watercolorist Sara Fitzgerald O’Brien’s charming renditions of lobsters, hydrangeas, and Breton striped shirts. In Spaces, a beachy home decor shop in the Lower Village, I fell in love with bottle-brush trees in shades of tangerine, melon, and coral. As I made my purchase, I discovered that the woman behind the counter was Cheryll Pendergast—also known in these parts as Mrs. Claus.

“I ride in the lobster boat with Santa when he arrives during Prelude with two of Santa’s helpers, who are dressed in lobster costumes,” she said. “It’s amazing. We come down the river, and there are so many people on the bridge, cheering and yelling. It’s like Santa is a rock star.”

I told her I was sorry I missed that.

“I’ve done it for 20 years, and I’ve been through five Santas,” she said, adding, “No one else will put on that dress in the middle of winter.”

I laughed with her, but I got the feeling she wouldn’t hand over the red dress even if another volunteer came forward.

Back at the Boathouse hotel’s water-view restaurant, I dug into lobster mac and cheese made sublime and decadent with a spicy ’nduja-cheddar Mornay and big chunks of claw meat. I studied the Prelude schedule. I’d missed the festival-opening hat parade (I’d heard some people worked for a year on their elaborate headgear), but I would be able to catch the dog parade before I left town tomorrow. Tonight, I planned to hit the party tents at the Kennebunkport Inn and the Old Vines Wine Bar. I’d listen to some live music, sample some more local brews. And I’d watch with pleasure—and a little bit of envy—as dancing ladies in reindeer suits lost themselves in the joyful noise of the season.

from top : Captain Mike ferries his merry band through the harbor; Casey Wickham, general manager of the Yachtsman Hotel & Marina Club, shows he’s a Santa backer.

EXPLORING KENNEBUNKPORT

CHRISTMAS PRELUDE

Now in its 39th year, the Kennebunkport Christmas Prelude is set for Dec. 3–13, 2020; however, this year’s schedule of events could not be confi rmed by press time. And since many of the places listed on this page open specifically for Prelude, visitors should check for updates from both the festival and individual businesses before making travel plans. christmasprelude.com

EAT & DRINK

Bandaloop: Founded in Kennebunkport in 2004, the area’s primo organic eatery is now just up the road in a three-story barn in Arundel. bandalooprestaurant.com

Batson River Tasting Room: Pouring beer crafted from local hops that travel just minutes from farm to distillery, this is one of the preeminent tasting rooms on the southern Maine coast. batsonriver.com

The Boathouse: Executive chef John Shaw features a “lobster bar” at this maritime-themed restaurant in Kennebunkport’s luxury Boathouse Waterfront Hotel, just steps away from Dock Square. boathouseme.com

The Lost Fire: At this open-flame Argentinian-inspired steak and barbecue eatery in Cape Porpoise, chef-owner Germán Lucarelli wants patrons to feel like they’re “invited to my house, where I’d watch my uncle in front of the grill.” thelostfire.com

Musette: In the fishing village of Cape Porpoise, former White Barn Inn chef Jonathan Cartwright oversees this bistro serving up family-friendly food from breakfast through dinner. musettebyjc.com

Old Vines Wine Bar: Set in the Lower Village, this has been a Kennebunk favorite for more

than a decade for its fine wines, smart cocktails, and tapas-inspired menu. oldvineswinebar.com

Pedro’s: This is Kennebunk’s go-to for lovers of south-of-theborder cuisine. pedrosmaine.com

Village Tavern: A devoted local following suggests this upscale tavern restaurant on the site of a former West Kennebunk village market is one of the best under-the-radar spots around. villagetavernwestk.com

STAY

Boathouse Waterfront Hotel: A member of the Kennebunkport Resort Collection, whose nine boutique properties also include Hidden Pond and the Kennebunkport Inn, this luxury hotel on the Kennebunk River would likely dazzle even the wealthy ship captains who first built the town. boathouseme.com

Nonantum Resort: This classic 19th-century beachtown resort puts on a show for guests during Christmas Prelude before hibernating until May. nonantumresort.com

Waldo Emerson Inn: At the 18th-century home of shipbuilder Waldo Emerson, legend has it that great-nephew Ralph Waldo Emerson spent summers here writing in the parlor. The inn is one of seven members of Historic Inns of Kennebunkport, along with the Inn at English Meadows and the 1802 House. waldoemerson.com

SHOP

Dannah/Dannah for Men: Just a year after buying the venerable Ocean Avenue gift boutique Dannah, Laura McCullough opened a second store this past summer filled with gifts for him. dannahkennebunkport.com

Daytrip Society: Roam the aisles for the kinds of home decor, gifts, and specialty items you find tucked away only in places like this Dock Square fixture. daytripsociety.com

Farm + Table: Browse artisan crafts in a late-19thcentury Cape Porpoise barn. farmtablekennebunkport.com

Fine Print Booksellers: For reading both on summer beaches and by winter hearths, this is a year-round Dock Square stop. fineprintbooksellers.com

Jak Designs: Socially conscious artisans Tanya Alsberg and Jennifer Armstrong are the creative forces behind the handcrafted knitwear at this shop, which also carries an array of jewelry and accessories. jakdesigns.com

Minka: Boasting “all-natural, modern, and handmade” wares that range from home goods to handbags, Minka was recently dubbed one of the most beautiful independent shops in Maine by Architectural Digest minkahome.com

Sea Glass Jewelry Studio: The craftsmanship of local and international artisans shines at this boutique jewelry store. seaglassjewelrystudio.net

Boathouse Waterfront Hotel

Batson River Tasting Room

Minka

INVISIBLE NO MORE

Maine photographer Séan Alonzo Harris brings often-overlooked members of our communities into focus.

The story of the images you see on these pages begins with a 7-year-old boy who wanted to remember the most important people in his life. Séan Alonzo Harris grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but when his parents divorced his father moved to Washington, D.C. On a Christmas visit there, young Séan asked his grandmother for a tape recorder so he could take the voices of his father and relatives back home. Instead, she handed him a small plastic camera. “You can record with this,” she told him.

The photos he took he would put on his wall. “It kept them close to me,” Harris says today. “That was the beginning of my love of photography.” He is 52 today, and he still has that first kid’s camera—“one of my greatest treasures.”

He won photography awards as a teen, and after art school he worked as a photo assistant in Boston and then New York before settling in Portland with his wife in 1995. “I found a welcoming art community there,” he says.

As a Black artist in one of the country’s whitest states, Harris was acutely aware of inequality. In the summer of 2017 he began a series he would title “Voices in Our Midst,” focusing on the people who lived in and around Portland’s Kennedy Park, the most diverse neighborhood in Maine. “The first thing that grabbed me was the collision of haves and have-nots,” he says. “There are new houses, expensive condos, high-end restaurants on the

outskirts. But so many have no access to it. You can’t miss it. And there are many new Mainers from other cultures. I thought, What does that mean? How can I show that? ”

The first image Harris took for the project was of a young boy on a bicycle (OPPOSITE). “That was the beginning for me to honor the people in this neighborhood. I wanted them to be seen.” Over the next few years, his hours and images in Kennedy Park grew, and the photos were featured in exhibits.

Last winter, before Covid-19 intervened, Harris was in residence at Portland’s Indigo Arts Alliance, which offers creative time and space for artists of color. There, he reread the Ralph Ellison classic, Invisible Man. “This really resonated with me,” he says. “I knew I needed to go deeper on being Black in America.”

“Voices in Our Midst” continues, as does “I Am Not a Stranger,” portraits of new and old Mainers in Waterville, where he settled two years ago with his wife, Elizabeth Jabar. Today Séan Alonzo Harris is one of Maine’s most celebrated photographers, an artist whose gallery shows are bona fide events. (Cove Street Arts has planned an exhibit of his work in spring 2021.)

But at heart he remains that 7-year-old boy, determined to use his camera to honor the “people I’ve photographed who are proud, intelligent, beautiful people. But also almost forgotten.” —Mel Allen

To see more photos, go to seanalonzoharris.com or newengland.com/invisiblenomore.

Though Séan Alonzo Harris’s “Voices in Our Midst” shows a range of people and moments, the project was initially inspired by images he took of children that conveyed both their innocence and their inner world. “The harmony between the two girls brought me joy,” Harris says of this photo (ABOVE). “After someone said something to them, they walked away still holding hands. This image asks the viewer, What do you see? Is someone scolding, or just giving information?”

LEFT: Taken in 2018 and now part of “Voices in Our Midst,” this photo shows a young boy using a bicycle-powered cider press at Portland’s Cultivating Communities, a refugee resettlement program.

RIGHT: “I was struck by this girl’s sassiness,” Harris says of this 2017 image, “when she approached me and said, ‘Take my picture.’”

Fox Field’s basketball court in Kennedy Park became a favorite backdrop for Harris, “the rhythm of basketball” his inspiration. Of the photo of the girl walking across the court (ABOVE), he says: “She seemed to be investigating me. I’m focused on the hoop and the curvature of lines and she walked into the image. She made the shot.”

OPPOSITE AND BELOW: Always aware of the visual tensions that were happening “between the games,” Harris made a series of basketball photos in 2017, including a number featuring this young man, whom he knew as Francis.

NEXT SPREAD:

A player named Cole Hardy anchors a graceful composition of ball and net, buildings and sky.

“ WHEN I SAW THIS,” HARRIS SAYS, “I WAS REMINDED OF PAINTINGS OF THE GODS.”

“I WANT PEOPLE TO SEE US IN A WAY THEY DIDN’T SEE US

Maya

Williams

BEFORE. TO BE RECOGNIZED. THAT IS MY ULTIMATE GOA L . ”

Nyawal Lia

Erick Kibonge

Regina Santos, a member of Waterville’s century-old Lebanese community; aspiring musician Cooper Boardman, who lives in nearby Oakland; siblings Salix, Annick, and Dore Munezero, immigrants from Burundi who are part of the increasing diversity of Waterville.

While feeling his way as a new resident of Waterville, Harris began a portrait project called “I Am Not a Stranger.” He took 58 portraits of generational Mainers as well as new arrivals. “I wanted them to feel like VIPs.”

FROM LEFT:

WHEN SANTAS GET

TOGETHER

hat does it feel like to walk into a room filled with Santa Clauses? Well, for one thing, it feels nice. I learned this a month to the day after Christmas in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, at the annual gathering of the New England Santa Society, where I was enveloped in its jelly-bellied, whitebearded brotherhood.

Picture a beautiful blur of wizards and Jerry Garcias and Harley riders, a swirl of magic and mischief and even menace, but menace in the sense of being in the presence of something powerful, something you might not all the way

NINA MACLAUGHLIN |

BY DANA SMITH

understand. Such was the vibe in Sturbridge amid nearly 90 Santas. Each Santa his own man—round lean tall squat broad narrow—and yet they all seemed family, kindred, big elves from the same wood, and it was hard, maybe impossible, not to feel kid-giddy and glad in their presence.

The society, which was started in 2012, holds monthly Santa Suppers around New England for members to collect and connect with each other, and the big annual gathering has taken place for seven years at the Publick House in Sturbridge. Built in 1771, the heavy-beamed, low-ceilinged

ramble of a farmhouse holds a bakery, a tavern, a restaurant, banquet halls, long halls, stairways that seem to lead to inbetween floors, thick curtains, old portraits of grim colonial goners, wan and unsmiling in high-collared cotton and wool.

I arrived at reception to a lot of action: a wedding that night, with many guests showing up to check in. I had my eyes open for a Santa by the name of Dan Greenleaf, one of the founders and former president of the society (he’d stepped down in the past year). We’d spent some time on the phone; he’d given me the lay of the land.

Yes, there is a New England Santa Society. But what happens at its annual meeting, the stories you hear— it’s not what you might expect.

BY

PHOTOGRAPHS

Having parked their sleighs and reindeer out back, members of the New England Santa Society gather outside the Publick House in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, for a very merry portrait.

Hometown: North Smithfield, RI. Ye ars as

Santa: 51. Funniest Kid Question: “Why are Santa’s feet so big?” Must-Watch Movie: It’s a Wonderful Life. M emorable Request: “A 4-year-old asked for a potato. (Parents had no clue why.)” Not able Hobby: Close-up magic. N ational Beard Registry No.: 1322.

Hometown: Warwick, RI. Years as Elf: 5. Favorite Holiday Tradition: Making and giving gifts. “I actually do make gifts all year for Christmas!” C ommon Question: “How old are you?” (812 in elf years; 20-something in human years). Not able Hobbies: Crocheting, knitting, helping run a local chess club.

Hustle, bustle, and I slipped through wedding attendees, looking around for a white beard. No sign. I thought I heard my name, thought couldn’t be, kept walking, and then heard my name again, unmistakable. I turned to see Greenleaf rounding a corner in red cargo pants and a black shortsleeve button-down with candy canes, Santas, and Yule logs on it. I smiled; it was unfightable. And I felt unsteadied—shouldn’t I have been the one to spot him? Where’d he come from? How hadn’t I seen him?

We found an unused event room and sat down. He’d just come from the society’s board meeting. How was it? He shrugged. “It was a board meeting,” he said. I liked the image of plainclothes Santas gathered around a table, noting minutes, voting on plans. “Magic and spreadsheets,” I said. “Lots of spreadsheets,” he said.

Greenleaf, a teaser, a ribber, a good sort of wise guy, with the pearliest beard and a background in theater, started a company called I’m Santa in 2008, booking Santas for events across New England—at tree lightings, family Christmas parties, fire stations, cancer wards, corporate functions, assisted-living facilities, stores, and malls.

We went to part ways, intending to meet up later that evening for the society’s Fireplace Chat, a bit of a pre-party before the main event the next day. We were walking down a narrow hall, commenting on the heavy rain that had started while we talked, he a step behind. I turned to say I’d see him in a while—and he was gone. There were no doors, no rooms, no offshoot staircases. He was just gone. Maybe he forgot his keys at reception? Had to use the toilet? Dou-

Hometown: Sturbridge, MA. Ye ars as

Clauses: 2 . M emorable Request: Office supplies. “The little boy’s father shrugged and said, ‘Maybe he will grow up to be an accountant.’’’ Not able Side Gig: Bill is writing a children’s Christmas story for publication next year, fingers crossed.

bled back down the corridor before I knew? There were a lot of normal explanations.

The Fireplace Chat took place at the Hampton Inn, just up the road, in the breakfast area of the hotel, essentially the bright-lit front hall of the lobby with windows out to the indoor pool behind it. About 25 Santas and a few Mrs. Clauses sat around tables and helped themselves to coffee and passed plastic bowls of Cheez-Its and pretzels and tubs of hummus. Which all sounds regular. It was not that.

Again, as with Greenleaf, a funny rush of glowy warmth took hold; my whole body seemed to smile. I wasn’t the only one: Every hotel guest who passed by—kids, parents, solo men in athleisure wear, an old lady with tennis balls on the paws of her walker—all, when they saw, had a grin. It could not be helped. The Santas weren’t dressed in their red suits, but no one would call their attire un-festive. Kelly-green cords; red suspenders; red Crocs; red Reeboks; Christmasy plaids; shirts with Santas in chimneys, Santas on surfboards, Santas on sleighs. And all those big white beards.

They went around the room and introduced themselves, listed some of their gigs—children’s hospitals, centers for autistic kids, Cabela’s—and shared highlights of the season. After each had said his piece, a round of bass-voiced “Ho!”s served as applause. One Santa spoke of riding on a helicopter. Bob Lindgren, with kind eyes and a beard with a bit more scraggle to it, spoke of being Santa at barnyards, and said how the animals seemed to love him. Steve Martelli joked he got into Santahood as a teenager at summer camp trying to impress two girls.

BILL BARNSLEY and JUDE McDONALD

GEORGE MARTIN

REBEKAH JOY BORONSKI

Hometown: Westborough, MA. Ye ars as

Santa: 7. H oliday Listening: Burl Ives’s “Silver & Gold.” M emorable Request: A little girl wanted her parents to have more time together because they both worked so much. Not able Side Gig: Justice of the peace who loves to perform weddings as Santa.

Hometown: Shelburne, MA. Ye ars as

Clauses: 16 . Beloved Book: (Hers) Mrs. Claus Takes a Vacation ; (his) Are You Grumpy, Santa? Funniest Kid Question: (Hers) “How do you feed all those elves?”; (his) “Have you ever fallen out of the sleigh?” Post-Xmas Escape: “A cruise to anywhere!”

Here is one thing about Santa Clauses: Many of their stories have collisions of heartbreak and joy, the stuff of Hallmark Channel holiday movies that get people snuffling into their sleeves. Bill Sattler talked of the girl who’d been told eight months earlier after being in an accident that she would never walk again, how her goal had been to rise from her wheelchair and walk to Santa’s lap, and her first faltering steps as her father and two siblings looked on, as she took one step, another, another, unaided, and made it, defying what all the doctors foretold. And Greenleaf recalled being in a store one day, just a regular afternoon, and a 93-year-old woman came up to him and said, “You know who you look like?” And he replied, “George Clooney?” And she laughed and they chatted and at the end she said, “This is the best day I’ve had in years. Thank you.” And then there was George McCleary. A massive man, tall and broad, with such gravitas, a demeanor so gentle, exuding such profound calm and warmth, it was as though

Hometown: Manchester, NH. Ye ars as Santa: 13 M emorable Request: “Whenever a child asks me to give toys to children in need, feed those that are hungry, or house those that are homeless.” U nusual Skill: Can play the sousaphone. Verdict on Eggnog: “With or without brandy?”

his size demanded an equally pronounced sense of kindness. He told me about visiting a group of third-graders at a church in Newtown, Connecticut, just a week after the school shooting there in 2012, when 26 people were killed. He told me about the silence in that room full of thirdgraders. He told me about the first child, then the second, who, when they got to his lap, told him there was nothing they wanted. He told me about a little girl who stood at the edge of the room and wouldn’t approach, but would catch his eye now and then. And how at the end, after all the other children had left, this little girl, her name was Julia, ran up to him and pressed herself into his lap and put her small arms around him and said, “Santa, I love you.” And he told me how her mother, who was also there, began to cry, and said to him, “Those are the first words she’s spoken in days.” And he told me how Julia had been buried under the bodies of her friends, and she was alive because she had stayed so still. And he told me how each year afterward she would come to see him, but on the sixth year, he got the call: She had stopped believing.

As he told me this, two other Santas and a Mrs. Claus stood near. One of the Santas put his hand on my shoulder as I wrote it all down. “She’s crying,” he told the others. And that was true.

That night, I thought about why and when we stop believing. The recess scene, some know-it-all toughie who sneers, What, you actually believe in Santa Claus? And the poor kid who does, not wanting to look like the soft, milkspirited believer he is, afraid of being shunned by his pals,

STEVE HENDRIX

BECKI and LENNY STRATTON

DAN GREENLEAF

“I put it to them this way”—and he leaned in and lowered his voice and spoke slowly—“What do you have to lose by believing?”

Hometown: Thomaston, CT. Ye ars as Santa: 36. Favorite Toy as a Kid: Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. Mu st-Watch Movie: The Santa Clause C ookie Pick: Chocolate chip.

Notable Hobby: Tending Santa’s victory garden. Verdict on Eggnog: “Love it!”

Hometown: Cromwell, CT. Years as Santa:

24. H oliday Listening: “White Christmas.”

Beloved Book: A Visit from St. Nicholas.

Must-Watch Movie: Miracle on 34th Street. Notable Hobby: Kayaking, bullseye shooting. Verdict on Eggnog: “Not so much. Hot buttered rum, better!”

as his own private magic gets stomped by the swings, says, No, I don’t believe. And it dies out of fear that we’re fools for thinking it so, for trusting in some force we can’t see. But knowing Santa Claus doesn’t exist is not the same thing as being strong enough to believe if he did.

“I have kids who tell me I’m not real,” said Chip Adams. “I say, ‘What do you mean I’m not real? Feel this.’” He held out his arm. “And if the kid still doesn’t buy it, and says, ‘Just because you have an arm doesn’t mean you’re real,’ I put it to them this way”—and he leaned in and lowered his voice and spoke slowly—“What do you have to lose by believing? ”

t 8:30 the next morning, nearly 90 Santas in full regalia gathered in the big banquet hall that had held the previous night’s wedding. A record crowd, up from 60-something last year. Red robes, white fur, tall boots, white gloves, red hats, big buckles. Bells jangled. Foreheads glistened. Hugs, handshakes, hellos. David Sizemore wore formfitting red velvet overalls that made him look like a giant doll and had the voice of a cartoon bear; Jim Levasseur carried a wooden staff carved by his son out of butternut, basswood, and pine, topped with a carved reindeer head. There was chatter about dry-cleaning expense, of weight loss due to sweating in hot suits, of beard product and trendy toys and the Santa camp that many attend, weekend seminars where they learn tools and tricks of the trade, aspects of both improv and business.

The average age was down, from 68 to 64. Scott Martin was the youngest, at 44, there with his father and uncle. He

Hometown: Hanson, MA. Years as Santa:

30. Favorite Toy as a Kid: A train set. H oliday

Listening: “Silent Night.” Funniest Kid Quote: “Hold everything, I have to pee.” C ookie Pick: Oatmeal raisin. Not able Hobby: Trike riding. Verdict on Eggnog: “Love it.”

dyes his beard, but you wouldn’t know it. “See?” he said, pulling up some of his mustache to reveal sandy roots and the bright pink underside of his upper lip. His uncle George has half a century of Santa-ing under his belt; his father, Tom, with a closer-cropped beard and a coiled energy, talked of having “a short fuse when I was younger” and that being Santa has changed him. Over the course of the weekend, many Santas said some variation of “It’s made me a better man.”

Over and over, the men talked of “heart.” The sense they give is that this is not an act, not a few-months-a-year thing. It’s a set of values, a code, an actual way of life they honor all year. You don’t give people the finger in traffic if you’re Santa. You don’t huff and grumble in line at Dunkin’. You don’t smoke or get drunk in public. You are ready, in any moment of the day, in November or April or on the sweatiest day in July, to be recognized, to have some kid pull on a parent’s sleeve and say, “Is that Santa?”

Because the answer is yes.

The sense they give is that this is not an act, not a few-months-a-year thing. It’s a set of values, a code, an actual way of life.

TED COAKELY

GEORGE McCLEARY

NICK TOMASSONE

Hometown: Danbury, CT. Years as Santa:

37. Favorite Toy as a Kid: A Big Wheel.

Memorable Request: “A mountain—not a toy one, a real one! He wanted it put in his living room.” Not able Side Gig: Once modeled for illustrations for The Night Before Christmas (Easton Press).

Hometown: Wells, ME. Years as Santa: 40-plus. M eaningful Moment: “One Christmas Eve when I was a police officer I was confronted by an armed, drunken, and despondent man. Every Christmas Eve I remember that night, and thank the Lord for watching over me and my family.”

Around the room they went, introducing themselves. One stood and talked of the rise of gender-nonconforming kids. I prepared myself to cringe—older generations, their prejudices—but he was simply voicing a concern of the trade, wanted fellowship, guidance to make sure he was handling things right. “I got one little girl who said, ‘I wanna be a boy,’ and I told her, ‘Whatever makes you happy makes Santa happy.’”

After the intros, Greenleaf was presented with an award for his service. And then a Mrs. Claus stood up and said that Nick Gillotte, the new president, deserved a round of applause as well. She talked about how call-and-response gets a crowd going. “For example,” she said, “when I say snowball, you say...” and “FIGHT!” filled the room from these deep-voiced ho-ho-ho -ers.

“Snowball…”

“FIGHT!”

“Snowball…”

“FIGHT!”

“Snowball…”

And she and another Mrs. C reached into a quilted bag on the table and started throwing soft cottony snowballs into the room, and what happened next was one of the most unexpected and unalloyed expressions of joy I have had the good fortune to witness. This banquet hall full of Santa Clauses erupted into a snowball fight. White balls flew across the room, some caught, a shoulder hit, a ball to the back of a head, bouncing off rafters, arms cocked and letting them rip. Dozens of snowballs. Dozens of men throwing

Hometown: Bethany, CT. Ye ars as

Santa: 9. Best Xmas Present: A son and a daughter adopted from Russia on Dec. 25, 1996. Surprising Background: Once deployed around the world with Army Reserve Military Intelligence. “This Santa really knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice!”

them across the hall. And it went on. It went on! Longer than you ever would’ve imagined. These ageless ham-it-up jesters and saints, they threw fake snowballs around the room, these old men, these boys, the child that lives in all of us, the whole time, that never, never dies. Believe it. Believe it.

After the ruckus subsided, Gillotte explained that there’d be a short break before the next phase of the day. Out in the hall, a Santa named Ralph Noon stopped me. “Your heart is so full of happiness,” he said, laying a hand on my arm, and though I have little experience with places of worship, it was in a manner I can’t help but call priestly. “It’s love that you feel, this joy, unexplained. You take off the wrappings, and we’re called to be the love. And we happen to call it Santa.” He squeezed my arm. “Your life has been changed forever,” he said. “May the spirit always be in our hearts.”

The Santas returned after the break for the keynote speaker. A man in a gray-blue shirt and dark jeans, dark hair slicked back, walked to the front of the room, where a sleek headshot of him appeared on a screen in front of an image of the cover of his book. He was there, he explained, to talk about “Appreciation Marketing: How to Achieve Greatness Through Gratitude.”

They are going to sit through this , I thought, after that snowball fight? Magic and spreadsheets. The nature of their job, and maybe, really, of all of ours, is to find a way to hold both things at once. I slipped out a side door of the inn; clouds moved fast against a bright blue sky. I found the rental car in the lot. I turned it on and then I turned it off and I sat there and I wept.

NICK GILLOTTE

DAVE BANKS

ALEX DEMBSKI

By Justin Shatwell

HAND-LETTERING BY ULLA PUGGAARD

The Mayflower sits calmly at anchor, its sails furled after a long voyage. Around it, a crush of smaller boats fills Plymouth Harbor, jockeying for position, vying to be the closest. The photograph is old and grainy, but it’s clear what’s happening on the shoreline. Thousands of people stand at the water’s edge, pressed cheek to jowl, shouting, cheering, celebrating.

“This is the scene we want to re-create,” Kate Sheehan tells me.

She takes the photo from my hand and places it atop the small mountain of promotional materials that is threatening to snap her desk in two. We are at Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where as the associate marketing director Kate has spent the past several years preparing for 2020, the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing. The highlight of the museum’s celebrations will be the return of its Mayflower replica from a restoration stint at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. Kate wants the crowd to be no less than the 25,000 who greeted the ship when it first sailed into the harbor, in 1957.

This is before , of course.

It’s March 4, and as Kate guides me through the museum’s visitor center, I can’t help but question

whether people will really show up for the Pilgrims in 2020. As American icons, the Pilgrims have lost much of their shine over the past several decades. The days of elementary school pageants—with half the kids in buckle hats and the others in feather headdresses—are mostly over. The Pilgrims’ story once bound the country together; now it is a source of division. If 25,000 people turn out for the Mayflower, I wonder, how many will be there to protest?

The building is buzzing with activity as the staff prepares for its spring opening. Workers are painting the walls in those muted colors we’ve come to think of as “colonial.” In the gallery, curators are putting the finishing touches on an exhibit highlighting the findings of a new archeological dig in town. And in a large hall, the museum’s army of interpreters are gathered for their spring conference, a series of lectures and workshops where they hone their peculiar craft.

Plimoth Plantation is a living history museum. Its grounds are dominated by an authentic re-creation of Plymouth as it would have looked in 1627. Each of the “Pilgrims” you find there is an interpreter role-playing an actual historical figure. From 9 to 5 they live and breathe the 17th century. They will talk your ear off about what life was like in Holland, the rottenness of the Church of England, or the temperament of their rare-breed sheep,

*The living history museum known as Plimoth Plantation for more than 70 years announced this summer it would change its name to reflect its commitment to telling both the English and Native American stories equally. Shortly before press time, the new name was confirmed as Plimoth Patuxet Museums. Patuxet is the Wampanoag name for the Plymouth area.

The 400th anniversary of the Mayflower ’s landing finds Plimoth Plantation*—and all Americans— wrestling with a complicated history.

but they will not break character, no matter how many times you ask to take a selfie with them.

I slip into the back row and listen to a delightfully madcap workshop titled “Accent Your Accent.” Joshua Bernard, the museum’s resident linguist, is pleading with his coworkers to erase the present progressive tense from their minds. Tacking -ing to the end of a verb simply wasn’t done in the early 17th century. The Pilgrims never

would have found themselves walking to the market. “You shall to the market go!” he implores.

He brings up two young interpreters, a woman and a man, and has them act through a scene, improv comedy–style. Deal with a crying baby, he instructs. “That baby … ought not cry in my presence,” the man stammers. “The baby to God should cry out his praise!” the woman replies.

The crowd laughs. To the kinds of history buffs who

role-play Pilgrims for a living, this is comedy gold. Still, beneath the levity, there’s an undercurrent of stress among the staff. This year is going to be different. It’s going to be bigger and more intense.

Even in a normal year, the history they teach is a lightning rod. The 400th anniversary will draw only more scrutiny. To some people the Pilgrims represent American ruggedness, religious freedom, and democracy; to oth-

ers they represent colonialism, white supremacy, and the genocide of Native Americans. In truth, they were a little bit of all of these things, but complex stories do not hold up well in a culture war. The Pilgrims are no longer just historical figures, they’re symbols—and a symbol must stand for something.

The museum does its best to stay above the fray. The interpreters take a just-the-facts-ma’am approach to history and avoid editorializing. Plimoth Plantation is more than happy to tell you what the Pilgrims were like , but it lets you make up your own mind about what the Pilgrims mean

This approach sets the museum up as a kind of Pilgrim Switzerland—not neutral, per se, but noncombatant. That said, when you’re dressed from head to toe as a 17th-century Puritan separatist, you’re going to draw some fire.

After the workshop, I catch up with Joshua and ask him how he’s feeling about the coming year. “It hits me in waves,” he says. Still, he’s mostly excited. He believes what they do at the museum is important, and he’s been interpreting for so long he knows how to get through a tough conversation.

“Stand firm when people try to reject history around you,” he says, “but also allow yourself to be enough of the bad guy to show that [the Pilgrims] also were not perfect.”

At the end of the day, Kate Sheehan guides me back to the front of the visitor center. She mentions in passing that she has to get to a meeting to discuss what the museum will do if this weird virus somehow gets here from Italy. She doesn’t seem that concerned.

Ten days later, on March 14, Plimoth Plantation opens for its 400th anniversary season. The very next day, the museum shuts back down—along with basically everything else.

EVEN WITHOUT THE CORONAVIRUS, THE 400TH anniversary never stood a chance of topping the 300th. America greeted that date with a level of spectacle that would put a Super Bowl to shame. The town of Plymouth hosted a pageant featuring nearly 1,400 actors; the country’s most famous composers provided the music and Robert Frost contributed to the script, which set the Pilgrims at the heart of an epic that transcended time. Among the cast were a group of Vikings, Sieur de Champlain, and Abraham Lincoln. Plymouth Rock itself even got a speaking role. “As one candle may light a thousand so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation,” the rock bellowed.

Across the country, politicians of every stripe offered up their praise. Massachusetts governor and soon-tobe-president Calvin Coolidge gave a speech in which he immodestly declared that the Pilgrims had not, in fact,

sailed from England: “They sailed up out of the infinite.” He then equated the Pilgrims with the very notion of religious freedom and carved out a place for them in the broader Christian cosmology, as though the long road from Genesis to Revelations runs squarely through Plymouth Harbor.

“Civilization has made of their landing place a shrine,” Coolidge said. “Unto the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been entrusted the keeping of that shrine.” He argued, essentially, that remembering the Pilgrims was a sacred duty.

One hundred years later, a very different governor of Massachusetts declared it legally “nonessential.”

The museum shut its doors, and I shut mine. From quarantine, I tried to keep tabs on the anniversary online, but few people outside Plymouth were talking about it. History 400 years in the making will always lose out to history being written right this moment. No one seemed to have an appetite for debating what the Pilgrims mean to America today. The expected wave of newspaper op-eds decrying or defending the Pilgrims went unwritten and unmissed. I began to wonder if arguing about the past is a luxury of people not struggling to survive the present.

In the early days of the pandemic, the museum’s website struck a defiantly optimistic tone, continuing to sell tickets to tour the Mayflower upon its return in May. Then a news release quietly appeared announcing the furlough of most of the staff. Next the museum began soliciting donations to help make up for lost visitor revenue in a post distressingly titled “We’ll Be History Without You.”

Plymouth 400, the organization planning the celebrations in town, canceled its events through September. A smaller event that had been planned to celebrate the Mayflower ’s visit to Boston in May was also scrapped. In their press release, organizers teased that the Mayflower might still be towed into Plymouth Harbor on schedule Memorial Day weekend.

Could that be true? I wondered. Would they really sneak

the ship back when no one was looking? It would be a massive disappointment for the museum, but I couldn’t help but think that it would also be the most historically accurate way to do it. After all, when the original ship arrived in 1620, there was no one on shore to witness it. The only eyes present belonged to those on board, and they were undoubtedly looking west toward an unfamiliar land and an uncertain future.

It’s a fair bet that on that day, not one of them specu-

lated about how they’d be remembered centuries later. They were Calvinists—humble people who viewed the world as just a prelude to the infinite. When they thought of the future, they thought of their afterlife, not of their earthly posterity. If any of them could have seen that 300th anniversary gala, they probably would have condemned the spectacle as garish idolatry.

That’s the thing about making heroes out of historical figures: It’s rarely about them or what they would

have wanted. We do this for ourselves. Humans have always had a weakness for heroic origin stories. They make us feel as if we’re inheritors of some great tradition. They also make the past seem simpler and more intentional. Ideally, we’d like the past to be like a tree—a great, linear trunk branching into innumerable stories, each connected and dependent upon that one perfect seed from which it all sprang.

But that’s a fantasy. The forces that shape the world are bigger than individuals, bigger than single moments. History isn’t a tree, it’s a meadow. It’s a million individual threads twining and unraveling in the wind. When you’re in the midst of it, it’s chaos. It’s only from a great distance that you can discern the shape of it—and fool yourself into believing that it is one single, coherent thing.

If the Mayflower had sunk in the North Atlantic, New England still would have been colonized. Native Americans still would have been killed or displaced. Democracy, religious freedom, revolution—none of these things were dependent on 100 soggy settlers stumbling onshore one chilly day in 1620.

Yet just because they weren’t the cause of these things, it doesn’t mean there’s no value in their story. It doesn’t mean we can’t learn something or feel some connection. In fact, during the darkest days of the pandemic, as I compulsively reloaded news websites and fretted with my sister about our parents’ safety, I understood the Pilgrims better than I ever had before. I could see them now not as heroes, not as founders, but as a confused bunch of people who, like me, were scared, focused on the present, and completely unable to predict what their lives would look like a year in the future.

They were then as we are now—lost in the weeds of a history that had yet to be written.

ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND, no sails were spotted approaching Plymouth Harbor. News of the ship’s clandestine return proved to be just a rumor. The museum still

hoped for a grand homecoming; it just wasn’t sure about when or how.

Plimoth Plantation opened its doors to the public on June 11, well ahead of most other museums. It had slipped into phase two of the Massachusetts reopening plan by arguing that as an open-air museum it functioned more like a botanical garden, and in those first days that seemed like an accurate description. During the quiet months, nature had taken steps toward reclaiming the land. The birds had returned in a number and variety that interpreters had never seen, and emboldened turtles had made nests across the grounds.

Visitors on opening day experienced a changed museum. Most interior spaces were barred to them (social distancing inside a thatched-roof cottage just isn’t fea-

sible). Visitors could no longer roam the grounds freely, but were instead bound to a fixed path that minimized the chance of groups running into each other. Most notably, the Pilgrim village that the museum had spent so much effort making historically accurate was now littered with anachronisms: public safety signs, hand sanitizer stations, and, of course, masks.

Kerri Helme, a veteran Wampanoag interpreter, is making the most of the new uniform requirements. She wears masks printed with squash blossoms and other native designs so they don’t clash so badly with her traditional deerskin clothing.

She works at the Wampanoag Homesite, a space set apart from the village. Unlike her Pilgrim coworkers, she is not in character. She never thinks twice about the present progressive tense, greeting visitors in plain English with a noticeable Boston accent.

Kerri and the other native interpreters aren’t bound to the year 1627. They wear the clothing their ancestors would have worn and they demonstrate traditional skills, but they’ll talk to you about anything. King Philip’s War, forced Christianization, the federal government’s ongoing attempts to strip away their Mashpee reservation—it’s all on the table and they genuinely want you to ask.

I ask her if those conversations are coming easier now, and she says they are. “I’m having a lot longer and more meaningful interactions with visitors,” she says. “I think people are seeking that more.”

While the museum was closed, the country changed in more ways than one. The killing of George Floyd sparked a national reassessment of our history. Protestors pulled statues from their pedestals. Whatever historical pause we experienced at the beginning of this crisis is over. Americans definitely want to argue about the past, and it’s only a matter of time before the Pilgrims have their moment.

But this isn’t all new. Kerri has worked at Plimoth Plantation for well over a decade, and she’s seen this change coming. People have become more informed about the history and more eager to hear the native perspective. Sometimes visitors come to her bragging that they just told off a Pilgrim. “And I think, Oh my gosh, the person they’re yelling at is such an ally to the Wampanoag people ,” she says.

What the public doesn’t understand, Kerri says, is that she wants this story to be told. She wants you to see the whole picture. “This is the environment that our ancestors lived in,” she says. “We had allies, just like we do now, and we had enemies, a lot of enemies, too. We don’t want to play into painting a picture of it being some blissful situation here.”

This is the kind of history Plimoth Plantation likes to

(Continued on p. 137)

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Do the Pilgrims Still Matter?

(Continued from p. 135)

do. It shows you what the past was like, with all the warts and contradictions, and then, if you want, it gives you a chance to unpack it all.

This is what good history is. It’s what sets a museum apart from a monument. It acknowledges that historical figures, when they were alive, were just as flawed as we are today. More important, it acknowledges that historical figures are, in fact, dead. None of the praise or condemnation leveled at them ever reaches their ears. They don’t know, and they don’t care. All that’s left on this earth of the Pilgrims and everyone else from 1620 is the lingering consequences of their actions, both good and bad. We all feel them, whether we’re aware of them or not. The only way to understand the legacy of the past is to let go of the myths and the heroes and the simple stories and look bravely at the whole big ugly mess.

After the opening, I caught up with Richard Pickering, the deputy director of the museum, and asked if, after everything that had happened, the museum had adjusted its interpretation at all. He said no. The message is what it is, but he wonders if people will be more receptive to it now. “I think the experience we’ve had as Ameri-

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The Return of the Mayflower

Greeted by hundreds of watercraft and more than 1,000 people on shore, the 64-year-old tall ship Mayflower II sailed back into Plymouth Harbor on August 10. For a glimpse into the threeyear, multimillion-dollar restoration that preceded the ship’s return, look for Weekends with Yankee ’s visit to Mystic Seaport in season 4 (episode 7, “Handmade in New England”). At the preservation shipyard there, we take a tour of the Mayflower and talk with Plimoth Plantation’s Whit Perry, who led the project that saw nearly 70 percent of the ship’s timbers, planking, structural frames, knees, and beams replaced. For more information and to find out how to watch the series, go to weekendswithyankee.com

cans, seeing people either reach incredible heights of kindness, as was seen in Plymouth, or perform incredible acts of coldness, as was seen in Plymouth, we will now be able to understand the past better because of the tapestry of what we’ve been seeing over the last couple of months,” he says.

It’s an interesting thought. Will living through a tragic and divisive time make us more receptive to talking about tragic and divisive history? Maybe, but I think we have a long way to go. People may be toppling statues, but I don’t think we’re ready to topple the very idea of statues itself. I’m sure we’ll continue to divide history into heroes and villains. I’m sure we’ll continue in vain to balance truths atop pedestals. I’m sure we’ll continue to turn people into symbols and then argue about what those symbols mean.

When they see the Mayflower today, back at its berth once more, I think most people will still feel as though they have a binary choice, to either cheer for it or curse it. But I hope some will find a space in the middle. I hope some will come to see it not as a monument, not as a symbol, but as a frank acknowledgment of what happened and an invitation to have a long, painful, and honest conversation about everything that happened next.

The Mayflower II approaches Plymouth Harbor’s Bug Light en route to its home berth in August. COURTESY OF PLIMOTH PLANTATION

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Life in the Kingdom

(Continued from p. 144)

beside the point, and while I have no doubt I could claim a “need” for an excavator, I have significant doubts about my ability to pay for one), or engaging in meandering, one-sided conversations with the cats. I’d read, but for me, reading on a dark winter evening is a oneway street to slumberville, a fine place to visit once the clock has struck 9 or so, but a pretty embarrassing place to find oneself at, oh, 7:30.

Of course, I’m exaggerating a bit to make a point. There are plenty of winter evenings when I strap on my skis and disappear into the moonlit night, or make at least marginal progress on one half-finished project or another. Sometimes, we line up hip-to-hip on the couch and watch a movie, or the boys and I play darts while Penny transforms slender strips of wood into beautiful and functional baskets. On occasion, I even manage to read until a reasonable bed-

time. And at least every other night, I leave the poor cats alone.

I am learning, however hesitatingly, to accept and perhaps even embrace the slowed-down nature of the season— and to recognize that in some ways, it’s necessary. The pace of summer cannot be sustained. Not by me, at least, nor by anyone I know. The rhythm and ritual of living with the land is not limited to the tasks themselves but extends to the pace of life itself: the slow ramping up of spring, followed by the frenetic pace of summer, then a gradual winding down as the leaves and temperatures drop, and finally, the quasi-hibernation of winter. When the boys were young, we read to them frequently from books of historical nonfiction; I recall one in particular that described, in sometimes excruciating detail, the isolated life of two trappers who’d hunkered down in a windowless one-room cabin to ride out a particularly brutal winter. Mostly what they did was sleep, eat, tell stories, and argue. And while there’s no part of me that aspires to replicate their experience

(what?!? no Wi-Fi??), that doesn’t keep me from taking comfort in it. That my hardships are significantly less, for one, but also that when you strip away the many distractions our species has developed across the years, that’s pretty much what life boils down to: sleeping, eating, and telling stories. Maybe even arguing, too.

I’m reluctant to assign too much meaning to the coronavirus pandemic. Far as I know, the virus itself has no conscious intent or master plan. It’s just doing what all living things will do given half a chance: Survive. Replicate. Grow. And yet it’s hard to avoid noticing the ways in which, through all the tragedy and disruption, the pandemic has compelled us to follow the rules of nature a bit more closely. Our distractions remain myriad, but they are reduced. In a sense, we are all cabin-bound trappers now, staring down the tunnel of a long, dark winter, unsure of exactly how it will transpire, what hardships we might endure. (Please don’t take this as a diminishment of the suffering the virus has already inflicted, much of which has been heaped highest on those at the margins. But that is our failing; it has little to do with the virus itself, or what lessons it might offer.)

By the time you read this, it will nearly be winter proper. Thanksgiving will have come and gone, or at least be on the horizon. The pigs will be fat, and I’ll have chosen the day that seals their fate. The first icy mornings will have passed. Perhaps it will have snowed, perhaps not. Penny will surely have started on some exquisite piece of craft or another, and I’ll have drifted off on the couch with a book on my chest at least a time or two.

What will have come of the world by then is anyone’s guess; never can I recall feeling as if so much hangs so delicately. But I know this for certain: The nights will feel long and the days so very, very short, and if history is any guide, my apprehension will have given way to acceptance and, in my better moments, appreciation. It is winter. It is time to slow down. To rest. Because this I know too: Spring will come again.

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had.

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spinal alignment and promotes back pressure relief, to prevent back and muscle pain. The overstuffed, oversized biscuit style back and unique seat design will cradle you in comfort. Generously filled, wide armrests provide enhanced arm support when sitting or reclining. It even has a battery backup in case of a power outage.

White glove delivery included in shipping charge. Professionals will deliver the chair to the exact spot in your home where you want it, unpack it, inspect it, test it, position it, and even carry the packaging away! You get your choice of Genuine Italian leather, stain and water repellent custom-manufactured Duralux with the classic leather look or plush microfiber in a variety of colors to fit any decor. New Chestnut color only available in Genuine Italian Leather and long lasting Duralux. Call now!

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Pictured: Leather chair chestnut color. Chestnut color also available in Duralux fabric

On the Cusp of Winter

A

time for slowing down, settling in, and taking stock of the important things.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM HAUGOMAT

n the fall, daylight dwindles, and there comes a morning when I scrape the first ice from the car’s windshield, then one when I break the first ice from the cows’ water, and finally one when I see the first frozen crystals creeping inward from the shores of the pond. This is the order of the ice, always. I feed the pigs, calculating how many more bags of grain I’ll need to buy before slaughter, and how much that might cost. I tread through frosted grass on my way to the woodshed for another armload of split maple, knowing that soon the grass will be hidden under snow. And I feel, as I have in recent years, a sense of apprehension for what’s to come.

I grew up loving winter, which I attribute to my Scandinavian ancestry and a fondness for many of the things snow and cold make possible—skiing, mostly, but also driveway

plowing and tracking deer with my son and pulling strangers’ cars out of ditches, which I’ve learned is exponentially more enjoyable than extracting my own car. Performing the former, I’m a savior; doing the latter, I’m just another guy who got stuck. I like the coziness of winter, too: the constant tending of the fire, and the simple pleasure of returning indoors from a morning spent cutting wood. I hang my gloves on the towel rack, and remove my wet boot liners and leave them directly in front of the stove, where they’re sure to be in the way, yes, but they’re also sure to be dry by dinner.

I even like the holidays. My favorite is Thanksgiving, which for us is a simple afternoon with family and friends. There’s no football on the TV, no long-simmering feuds to hash out over turkey and mashed potatoes. We eat good food grown by our own labor, we talk, we take a walk, and then we eat some more. It does for me what I’m pretty sure Thanksgiving is supposed to do: give me pause to reflect on what’s most important to me, and to be conscious of my gratitude, which I know is too often obscured by the minutiae of life.

So why the apprehension? I cannot say, exactly. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of what’s to come. Feet of snow, or merely inches? Or worse yet, only rain. A long January thaw, or a protracted deep freeze? And if the latter, have we put up enough firewood? Some of this, I know, is the loss of daylight. Truth is, I’m not very good at passing time indoors in the evening. While my wife, Penny, is almost always engaged in some purposeful task or another, I struggle to find focus, and end up tunelessly plinking on my guitar, or browsing Craigslist for used building materials and excavators (whether we actually have a need for more used building materials is entirely

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