Tag: Christmas

The Friendship Tree and 24 Festival of Trees are lit!! – Manchester

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

Sunday evening was the official lighting of the Friendship Tree and the 24 trees in The Festival of Trees on Manchester’s Town Hall Common. A huge crowd had packed into the Congregational Church (SRO) for a 3:00 PM concert of Christmas songs and music, and then spilled out to fill the Town Hall Common and see the trees lit. They joined an already growing crowd who came for just the Tree Lighting and everyone brought the kids!

Just before..
The Friendship Tree Lights!
Followed by the Festival of Trees!

Christmas by the Sea ll

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

With the busy weekend underway, Santa made his way to Town and the Community Center for pictures with all each of the kids, the Historical Society Home put on its Christmas best, and the Boy Scouts, Troop 3, were selling trees, wreaths and Evergreen rope!

Santa!
Santa thanks his helpers
Santa thanking some Elves
Santa ready to spread some cheer..
Line forms for picture taking
Manchester Historical Society
Boy Scouts
Men at Work

The Harbor Gets a Tree

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

Not to be left out, Manchester Harbor sprouted a Christmas Tree! Wondering how they turn the lights on…

The Harbor Gets a Tree

Festival of Trees Update

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

A lot has happened since last Friday when the trees went up, but there are still a few trees to be decorated. Some groups are showing a little imagination with their trees… All trees are to be decorated by this Friday December 6th.

The Friendship Tree will be lit Sunday at 4:30 PM at the First Parish Church on Town Hall Common and the Trees in the Festival of Trees will be lit right after.

Christmas by the Sea – Schedule, December 5th through 8th

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

Thursday December 5th the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce will hold a Christmas Part at Seaside Cycles, 23 Elm Street, Manchester. Raffles, door prizes and more! All are welcome!

Friday December 6 – Shop Manchester will take place from 4:00 until 9:00 pm. Collect stamps in your holiday passbook as you visit any of the merchants and win a valuable gift pack from local businesses. Plus you will have a chance to win a new Apple iPad or new BMX bicycle. Details at the merchant shops.

Christmas by the Sea Childcare Service So the parents can shop with ease and without young ones seeing anything too early, Childcare Services will be available between 5:30 and 8:30 pm at the Manchester Public Library. A minimum donation of $10.00 with a family maximum of $30.00 for the evening. Green Team will entertain the children with arts & crafts/games/movie and light refreshments. Proceeds to support the programming offered by the Manchester Community Center and to support the efforts of the Manchester Essex Green Team. Manchester Public Library 15 Union Street, Manchester.

Saturday December 7th Shop Manchester continues all day with the chance to win the prizes already mentioned and see all the special ideas and gifts the Shops of Manchester have to offer this Christmas.

Manchester Sailing Association trims their tree for Festival of Lights
Surfari shows the Christmas Spirit

Santa Claus Comes to Manchester! The Annual Jingle Bell walk will start at 1:00 PM when Santa arrives by boat at Masconomo Park. Santa will lead the children on a walk to Singing Beach followed by an open house at the Community Center from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. See the petting zoo, a craft activity, face painting, entertainment with Mrs. Claus and refreshments. Santa will be available for the children to meet and have a their picture taken with Santa.

Holidays and Wintertide II: An Evening with Chelsea Berry & Friends ~ 7:00 PM Single Tree Music and the Historic Manchester Trust present a special Holiday concert performance featuring Chelsea Berry, Joe Cardoze, Renee Dupuis and John Rockwell. The Crowell Chapel, 4 Rosedale Avenue. Tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Sunday December 8th Santa’s tour of Manchester starts at 12;00 and will go until about 2:30 PM. Santa will be start at the Fire Station and be driven around on a fire truck throwing Animal Crackers to the children as he tours the Town. Families are also encouraged to visit Santa at the Fire Station at 11:45 AM prior to his leaving on the tour.

A Christmas Concert will be held at the First Parish Church from 3:30 to 4:30 PM. The concert will feature the Manchester-Essex School Band, Soundwaves, the High School Chorus, Memorial School Chorus and La Petite Choral.

4:30 PM Lighting of the Friendship Tree and the Festival of Trees, the official start of the Christmas season following the concert at the First Parish Church on Town Hall Common

A busy weekend in Manchester!

 

Upcoming Events in Manchester

Posted on by Lowell Peabody

CapeAnn Chamber

We don’t have to go to Paris for beauty…

Posted on by Matthew Green

Granted, our local churches aren’t  Notre Dame… but we have lots of beauty right here at home in Gloucester. Here are some photos of St. Ann’s Church (Holy Family Parish) with the Christmas decorations up.

First, a shot from a night right before Christmas (Dec. 23) when several blocks in Gloucester mysteriously had a power outage over several hours. We rounded up extra candles and Christmas lights for the evening Mass in Portuguese:

 

Then a few shots with normal lighting:

 

Remember, Christmas isn’t over yet! Today is the 9th day of Christmas (as in, “9 ladies dancing”).

– Fr. Matthew Green

Christmas Origami Santa

Posted on by Matthew Green

Santa brought me a few origami books! This Santa is from “Brilliant Origami”, by David Brill:

– Fr. Matthew Green

 

2012 Good Morning Gloucester FOB Christmas Meal Post

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Send In Your Christmas Meal Pics And I’ll Post ‘Em

send them to goodmorninggloucester@yahoo.com

Gloucester native Geordie Keefe had brussels sprout for Christmas.!

photo

Toby Pett

No dreidel, no Festivus Pole, and most of all NO RUBBER DUCKS…just leg of lamb, fine wine and Shirley’s blueberry pie…good wishes to all..

IMG_20121225_141350

Ann Kennedy-

"PJs and Paper Plates", our very laid-back Christmas brunch; lots of music, twice-baked potatoes, eggs, bacon and cookies.  Also do home-made dog treats for pet friends. 

Merry Christmas! – Gloucester holiday slideshow

Posted on by Matthew Green

Merry Christmas to all! May God bless you and give you joy, whatever your religious tradition and personal approach to the holiday season.

Remember:  Christmas is just beginning! Traditionally, the Christmas season lasts for more than a week (for Catholics, until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls on Jan 13 this year).  So, don’t rush to throw out those Christmas decorations!  You can still enjoy them for a while yet – at least for the famous “12 Days of Christmas” until Jan. 6!

Gloucester is a great place to spend Advent and Christmas.   Besides all the services, pageants and festivities in the religious context, there are lots of decorations and fun activities downtown.  Click on the photos below to see a slideshow of images taken during “Family and Friends’ Night” and “Men’s Night” on Main Street.

slideshow

 

I’ll be blogging from home in Connecticut for the next few days.

– Fr. Matthew Green

St. Ann School Christmas Concert

Posted on by Matthew Green

Last Thursday, St. Ann School had its Christmas concert.  Kudos to their choir director, Lori L’Italien, for her great work with the kids!  The cuteness factor of the little kids was off the charts.  Here are a few photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Fr. Matthew Green

Christmas Cheer from Fred Bodin

Posted on by Matthew Green

Last weekend, Fred Bodin and I were both at a great Christmas party / sing-along with a lot of other guests.  I guess I was feeling lazy, because I didn’t bring my camera.  Fred, on the contrary, was on top of things and he used his camera to grab some video of our caroling. Here is a medley I put together from his footage.  The last part is a snippet of a traditional Christmas Gregorian chant I sang with Kevin McDermott.

Thanks for the footage, Fred!

– Fr. Matthew Green

St. Ann School Christmas Concert

Posted on by Matthew Green

All are welcome to join us for our annual
St. Ann School Christmas Concert!

It will be held on Thursday, December 20 at 1:00 pm in St. Ann Church
(60 Prospect St. in Gloucester).  

The children have been working very hard to prepare for this year’s concert, which includes many traditional Christmas carols.

We hope to see you there!

Thank you,

Michele Butler, Principal of St. Ann School

Origami from Friday night, on the tree

Posted on by Matthew Green

On Friday night I taught these four holiday decorations at The Hive. From top to bottom: a relatively simple Santa, a star-like ornament, a menorah, and a modular cube (made from six modules, each folded from a square of paper, and joined together without glue).

The origami class time for Tuesday at Art Haven is going to have to change from the 6:30 time slot I mentioned before, but I don’t have the details worked out yet. I will put up the info as soon as I have it.

– Fr. Matthew Green

 

Fishmas tree progress report

Posted on by Matthew Green

Fishmas treeMary Ann and David are getting the fish onto the tree!  Today I received a whole school of more than 200 wonderful origami fish folded by the students of St. Ann School (huge thanks to Gemma Amero Flavin, their art teacher!). I don’t have an exact total count yet, but with these new additions and those folded throughout the week, we probably have close to 700!  Keep folding fish to help us reach our goal of 1000!

I’ll be folding a star for the top sometime in the next few days.

– Fr. Matthew Green

More origami ornaments

Posted on by Matthew Green

Origami ornamentsI will teach one or two of these at during my class tonight at The Hive tonight. (Apparently the class fee is $10, not $15 as I previously mentioned – and folding will start at 6PM. Fish first, then other ornaments).

Fish folding!

Posted on by Matthew Green

We had fun folding fish for the Gloucester Origami Fishmash/Christmas tree on Saturday! We got more than a third of the way to our 1000 fish goal in just a few hours, thanks to lots of visitors, including a few who folded fish fast and furious!

We still need more fish, though, so if you know how to fold origami fish (no cutting, fish preferably no more than 3″ or 4″ long when folded), please fold some and bring them to The Hive during its open hours.  Any origami sea life, from simple (anyone can do it!) to complex (Dr. Carbone, I’m talking to you!) are welcome!

_Fish folding 1In the back you can see the origami tree, which ended up a good size!

Here I am folding fish with friend, GMG contributor, and FOB Rick Isaacs:

_Fish folding with Rick Isaacs

We hope to start hanging the fish on the tree soon (maybe by the time this post hits the web)!

– Fr. Matthew Green

The Bean Interviews Snoop Maddie Mad On The Way To Buy Presents

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Even 7 year old Beannie Weannie knows to keep the camera horizontally for video.

Chorus North Shore’s Christmas Concert

Posted on by Matthew Green

On Saturday night, I went to Chorus North Shore’s Christmas concert at Our Lady of Hope in Ipswich (almost Cape Ann), which featured Vivaldi’s Gloria, “Christmas is Coming: a festive cantata”, and other songs of the season.

Chorus North Shore (which includes many Cape Ann residents) performed together with the Honors Youth Choir and the Festival Orchestra.

Gloucester resident Don Roby, besides singing in the choir, had a reading part and headed up The Boar’s Head carol (pun intended):

Either the boar’s head is hollow (or made of styrofoam), or maybe Don has been hitting the gym. He held that huge boar’s head aloft until the whole verse was over.

Alexander Thompson (of Ma’s Brands fame, who has an amazing voice, but does not sing in this choir) was in attendance with pencil and paper – not taking notes, but drawing:

The concert was great! Kudos to all the performers, the director, the technicians, etc.!

– Fr. Matthew Green