Roberta Thiel Evans passed away September 19, 2021 at the age of 60.  Born on June 22, 1961 in New Jersey, she and her eight siblings were left as orphans when she was only two years old, their mother passing away at age 41, and their father a few months later at the age of 43. The children were raised by two aunts. Roberta worked her adult life as a nurse’s aide in nursing homes. She leaves her husband Michael, one month short of their 24^th wedding anniversary. Our condolences to him and to the rest of the family. Donations in Roberta’s memory can be made to The American Stroke Association.

Daniel J. Marrotte passed away on April 10, 2022, in the 67^th year of his life. Born on May 30, 1954, the son of the late Gerard and Mary Marrotte, he is survived by his brother, Christopher Ivan-Marrotte and his wife Murielle of Hampton. He was predeceased by his brother, Thomas, who passed away on October 2, 2021.

Marion Duffy passed away on June 13, 2022 in the 85^th year of her life.  Born on April 23, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York, she lived in Hampton for many years with her husband, Bernard, who predeceased her on March 7, 2021. Marion was an Aerospace mechanic, but she is remembered here as a loving mother and grandmother, who raised her children and her grandchildren, twins Stephanie and Josh Kerendian. Our condolences to them.

Mark J. Collins passed away on July 16, 2022 in the 78^th year of his life. Born on August 29, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York he grew up in Scotland and lived in Hampton for over 50 years. After retiring from Electric Boat, he worked at Willimantic Waste and owned a small business “Mark’s Wooden World”, mostly making children’s toys. A 55 year member of the Fire Department and Chief of the Fire Police, Mark received the Secretary of the State’s public service award for his dedicated service as a volunteer firefighter in 2004. Predeceased by his wife, Catherine, he is survived by two daughters, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Our condolences to all. Donations in Mark’s honor may be made to the Hampton Fire Company

Ian Frederick Wolfgang Connolly passed away on August 6, 2022. He was 40-years-old. Born in Massachusetts, Ian graduated from Putnam High School and attended the University of Connecticut at Avery Point for a year to study marine sciences before entering the workforce and purchasing his first home at the age of 20. Ian was a dedicated dispatcher for the East Hartford Police and Fire Department for 18 years where he answered 911 calls. He also built playscapes for Cedar Works of Maine and was a court process server. Ian is survived by his parents, a sister, a brother, his maternal grandmother, and many uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and his “work-family” at the East Hartford Police and Fire Department. Our condolences to all.

Shirley Ann Spinnato passed away on November 1, 2022 at the age of 71. Born on July 9, 1951, Shirley worked at UConn before her retirement. One of her favorite activities was watching the birds and the wildlife in her backyard. She was known for feeding the wild animals because she felt like she was helping to take care of them. Shirley was one of nine siblings, two of whom she leaves behind. Our condolences to them and to her four children and her three grand-children. The family encourages donations to Wildlife Conservations in honor of Shirley.

Braden Squires passed away on November 2, 2022 in the 70^th year of his life. Born on October 1, 1952 in Storrs, as a child his family moved to Hampton where he would spend the rest of his life. Graduating from Windham Tech in 1970, Brad was a “jack of all trades”, driving a truck for several companies, mostly Ed’s Garage, and working for Burell Brothers sawmill until his retirement. Predeceased by his father and two brothers, Bucky and Scott, he is survived by his two sons, Jesse of Hampton and Jake, a grandson, his mother, Marie, his brother Brock, his sisters Roxanne of Hampton and Carolanne. Our condolences to all. Memorial donations may be made in Brad’s memory to the National Kidney Foundation.

Dr. Jack A. Meister, 91, passed away on November 2, 2022. Born in 1930, Jack graduated from Michigan State where he earned the highest honors ever received. He traveled the country shoeing horses in 40 states before earning his veterinary degree in 1957. In 1971, the family moved to Hampton where Jack ran his veterinary practice until 1984 when he became a veterinarian for the Iditarod in Alaska in the summer. He went horseshoeing with his son for several years, teaching him the art prior to taking a position at UConn as a livestock superintendent, teaching, and overseeing the care of all the animals, and eventually serving as the State Veterinarian and Epidemiologist until 1997. Predeceased by his daughter Duska and granddaughter Elizabeth, Jack is survived by his wife of 64 years, Dawn, his sons John and Bill, his son-in-law Neal Waite, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Our condolences to all.

William Carpenter passed away on December 14, 2022 in the 86^th year of his life. Born on July 22, 1936, Bill participated in spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Red Sox, played in semi-professional baseball leagues, and attended what is now ECSU where he was the team catcher. With his graduate degree from UConn, he became a successful principal in Stonington, Plainfield and Coventry for 35 years, and served as interim administrator in many Connecticut schools. He also served on the Democratic Town Committee and the Board of Assessment Appeals. Our condolences to his wife of 36 years, Kathleen, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Donations in his honor can be made to Plainfield High School’s Music program.

Anne Mitchell passed away on December 15, 2022 at the remarkable age of 96. Born in Queens, New York on September 8, 1926, to parents who emigrated from County Mayo, Ireland,  Anne embarked on a career as an Administrative Assistant in an NYC Ad agency before marrying and traveling throughout Europe with her husband Ed, who in 1983 predeceased her. The couple raised three children, and Anne served as the Executive Assistant at Ed’s law firm. Our condolences to her children, Jane Morrone, also of Hampton, and Edward and Philip, as well her siblings and grandchildren. Donations in her memory may be made to the International Rescue Committee or the PBS NewsHour.

Verna Jean Sforza passed away on January 5, 1923 at the age of 88. Born on February 18, 1935, she was a professional figure skater in her youth. Predeceased by her husband Frank, the Sforzas lived in Hampton for many years where she was known to all as “Jean”, and to special friends as “Sweet Berry Kicks Twice”. A member of the Skatacholke tribe, she was very involved in Native American heritage and causes. Her home was a virtual museum of Native American art and artifacts. She held tribal meetings at her home regularly and an annual “Naming Ceremony” where all were welcome. She marched regally in our Memorial Day Parade in full regalia, which she made herself, contributing in that gesture so much to our town. Her presence there and elsewhere will be missed.

In its beginnings, a little New England village like ours would not have celebrated Christmas. While the Historical Society’s 1859-1866 ledger from one of our schoolhouses recorded Thanksgiving in an elaborate scroll, Christmas was not even mentioned; and in “All Our Yesterdays”, where former residents Janet and James Robertson chronicled the lives of the family who once lived in their Main Street home, Henry Taintor’s diary entry for December 25, 1855 records that he was presiding over a case in his role as Justice of the Peace. A farmer from neighboring Brooklyn “Went to mill. Carried log for sled Runners. Thrashed”.  Henry’s niece Caroline, however, that same year would write of gifts and “eggnog and all kinds of delicacies” while she was living in Georgia, a place far removed from the Puritan principles of New England, where the Pilgrims decreed in 1659 “Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas and the like…shall pay for each offense five shilling as a fine to the country.”

Lois Kelley’s “Christmas Through the Ages”, published in 1998 and 1999, traced the history of the seasonal festivities, from the feast of the winter Solstice celebrating the return of the light, through the spread of the Christian holiday across Europe with missionaries such as St. Patrick, St. Augustine, and St. Francis of Assisi, who’s credited with creating the first Nativity Scene. The eventual emergence of the observance and celebration on our shores was the result of “the great melting pot of immigration” as families from other countries brought their traditions with them.  Evidence of this is everywhere — the Irish custom of candles in windows which now fill our village, Christmas trees, a German tradition, in our homes and public places, the poinsettia of Mexican lore on our altars and in our doorways, the Scandinavian mistletoe. The absence in our celebrations of English traditions, the “Yule log, or wassailing, or roasting a suckling pig”, Lois explained, is the result of the reluctance of the first settlers from England to recognize Christmas.

In 1978, the Gazette’s first year, the December front page featured Pearl Scarpino’s interviews with residents who were raised here at the turn of the century — Helen Matthews, Vera Hoffman, Bertha Burnham, and Anna McDermott – who all recalled the humble Christmas celebrations of their childhoods, neighborhood gatherings of friends and families, riding in a sleigh to Church, where a Christmas tree, trimmed with strings of popcorn and cranberries and real candles was skirted with presents parents placed there for their children, dolls suspended from branches and toy trucks tucked under them. Five years later, the December 1983 issue relayed accounts from the “younger generation” – Phyllis Stone, Helen Pearl, and Eunice Fuller – which were much more “festive”; and in 2020, “Our Rural Heritage” shared residents’ fondest memories of Christmas in our town, which, curiously, returned to those simple pleasures – remembering neighbors, the ringing of the church bells, the candlelit windows in our village.

In many issues, the origins of our traditions were explored.  Several authors contributed to the topic of the Christmas tree, the custom’s folklore as well as how to grow them and where to purchase them in town.  Norine Barrett wrote several historical articles, explaining, for example, in “The Holly and the Ivy” the use of evergreens, pagan symbols of immortality and therefore forbidden by “the Church”, where greens and illuminations were initially viewed with disfavor and seen as distractions from the sermon.  Wreaths were pagan symbols of protection and were also used in Solstice celebrations to illustrate the cyclical nature of life. Adorning most of our doors today, wreaths were adopted as Christian announcements of the season of Advent in Germany and Scandinavian countries. Norine also wrote of “Twelfth Night”, an English tradition which, like so many, was not celebrated in New England, and one English tradition which was – caroling. During the Depression and World War II, teenagers went evenings to every home in town to sing Christmas carols. Various groups have revived the tradition – students from the elementary school, Parish Hill High School’s chorus, girl scouts, boy scouts, and most recently, members of our Mennonite community.

Norine also shared her incredible collection of Santa Clauses, whose history Jean Wierzbinski traced in a 2014 article, from the original St. Nicholas, the Sinter Klass who settled on our shores with the Dutch in the 1600’s, to Clement Moore’s 1822 poem which bestowed  him with “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer”. When Santa Claus became a seasonal presence in city stores in 1941, he was also playing a role in our rural celebrations, distributing presents at the Congregational Church at the turn of the century, in the one-room schoolhouses, and to every child in town at the Little River Grange during the war years and beyond. For the last several years, Santa has made an appearance at the Burnham Hibbard House, and sometimes he’s ridden around town on a fire truck visiting children. In 2011, our front page, “Dear Santa”, featured the Christmas wishes of residents of every decade, from four-year-old Henry Fontaine who wanted “Smokey the Firetruck”, to ninety-seven-year-old Vinnie Scarpino, who asked Santa to “Surprise me!”

In the 1978 and 1980 issues, Alison Davis interviewed residents whose Christmas celebrations still included the customs of their cultures. Traditions such as Finnish pastries with prune filling and pastries with almond paste from Holland, Hungarian sweet bread with raisins and cinnamon, Scotch hash and short bread,  Estonian blood sausage, German honey cakes and stollen. So many customs centered on food, with an Italian family’s Christmas dinner of octopus, pastry in honey, chestnuts and pumpkin pie, and a Polish family’s “Wigilia” twelve courses representing the twelve apostles and the twelve months, including familiar favorites such as borscht and pierogi, and beginning with the “oplatek”, a piece broken from the blessed wafer as it passed from person to person.

There were other traditions residents shared from their heritages. The Parson’s Estonian custom of a village and electric train on a platform under the Christmas tree, the German tradition of a wreath with real candles lit on the four Sundays of Advent at the Brown’s, the Arriolas’ Mexican farolitos lining the way to their home on Christmas Eve.

The Gazette also featured Chanukah many times with several residents sharing the history and customs of the “Feast of Lights” and inviting everyone in town to join the festivities, starting in 1981 when Lenore Case described the traditions, the dreidel, the latkes, the lighting of the Menorah. The following year, her six-year-old son was the first among many children to write of “Chanukah through the Eyes of a Child”. And in 2001, Mary Oliver interviewed Eva Loew for the story of “The Wooden Menorah”, crafted from a Cuban cigar box and wooden spools while the family awaited entry into the United States during World War II in a refugee community in Cuba, where Eva spent her “most memorable Hanukkah.”

Two years later, Mary would write of the origins and rites of a winter ritual with deeper roots, the Solstice, commemorated throughout history and throughout the world. Native Americans everywhere, including those who once lived here, celebrate the Solstice, the rebirth of the sun. Mary’s article relayed the Inuit legend of the beginning of the world and its absence of light, which an old man had hidden in a box within many boxes. Desiring light in order to see his surroundings, Raven turned himself into a pine needle which the old man’s daughter swallowed while drinking water from the river. Nine moons later, she gave birth to a strange boy with a beak-like face and feathers on his back, who begged his grandfather for the boxes. The old man eventually acquiesced, and when Raven found the one with the light, he turned into his true form and flew out of the smoke hole and into the sky, where the light drifted to the rim of the universe and where it “remains to this day – we call it the sun”.

As we enter a new year in a world torn with divisiveness, with prejudice, with an unfathomable amount of intolerance toward differences of every kind, it is good to remember the origins of our holiday traditions, the lands and cultures from which they came, to recognize the resemblances between our winter observances, to value the invitations from our neighbors to join with them in their festivities,  to appreciate, throughout the year and our experiences, encounters with people of all walks of life, and to acknowledge the gift of diversity.

Happy Holidays, Hampton. Happy Chanukah, Christmas, Solstice, Dong Zhi, Kwanzaa. As Mary’s article reminded us, whatever you celebrate “remember to share your light – it makes us all warmer.”

Listen, my children, and you shall hear,

How Santa is coming to Hampton this year.

In the good old days of long ago,

He came in a sleigh on top of the snow.

His sled was pulled by reindeer eight,

And he was never, never later.

He sprung to the housetops and chimneys tall,

Filled the stockings, large and small,

With dolls and skates for girls and boys

And books and trains and other toys.

Then he climbed up the chimney and back to his sled.

And off to the next house he quickly sped.

Then he decided to come up to date

And decided a Ford would be first-rate.

The old thing rattled like an old buck board,

But ‘twas really the best that he could afford.

Then he bought a new streamline

That was really mighty fine.

Then they decided to ration the gas.

Santa sighed “alas, alas.”

An “A” card was given him by the Ration Board.

And Santa decided his car should be stored.

Then it came flashing over the wires

That the nation needed even his tires.

Then he decided to sell it for scrap

To help us all to beat the Jap.

So Santa said, “It’s no use talking,

I’ll have to go to Hampton, walking.”

And now my children, let’s have fun,

For here comes Santa, on the run!

Written during World War II, December, 1942, by Pearl Emmons Scarpino, discovered in Vera Hoffman’s mother’s scrap book.

This recipe comes to us from Eva Loew through her daughter, Margaret, who notes that the raisins might have been soaked in rum. Yum.

1 pint milk

1 cake yeast

7 cups flour

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

½ tsp. salt

4 beaten eggs

½ cup seedless raisins

½ cup blanched almonds

½ cup chopped citron

candied orange and lemon peel

grated rind of lemon

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat milk to scalding, then cool to luke warm. Add yeast and stir until dissolved. Add 3 cups flour and beat until smooth. Let stand, covered, until mixture rises slightly.

Cream together butter, sugar, salt and eggs. Add to yeast mixture. Stir in raisins, almonds, citron and flavorings.

Add enough flour to make firm dough. Knead until elastic. Let stand in greased bowl, covered in warm place until light and doubled in bulk. Divide dough into two equal parts. Roll each into oblong shape. Cut through center and fold over. Place in greased covered pan and let rise again for about 2 hours.

Bake in moderate oven, about 350-375 degrees, for 30 to 45 minutes. Brush with melted butter and soft confectioners’ sugar.

Eva Loew

Hampton will welcome the holiday season on Sunday, December 4, at 4 PM with a tree lighting and some carols at Town Hall.  Our new evergreen tree, delightfully taller after a year in the ground, is a gift of the Burdick/Chapel family in honor of Michael Chapel, Hampton Selectman. Please join us. After the tree lighting, members of the Believers’ congregation will serenade Hampton’s seniors at their homes with Christmas Carols.

Also on December 4, from 2 to 5 PM, the Hampton Antiquarian and Historical Society invites residents to visit the Burnham Hibbard House where small groups will enjoy holiday refreshments and Mark and Beverly Davis’ seasonal music. Santa will greet children under twelve.

Dear Auntie Mac,

After two years apart, our family is gathering together again this Christmas and returning to our traditions. Though in the face of inflation, which is really affecting at least our branch of the family tree, we would rather not resume our extensive gift exchange. We can’t afford it. My husband (and his pride) does not want me to admit this. Perhaps some suggestions on alternate types of giving might save face, ours and possibly others, and be acceptable to the rest of the relatives?

Penny Pinching  

My Dear Neighbor:

Even if the external brake lever of inflation had not been pulled on the careening sleigh of your previous holiday excesses, you are to be applauded for wanting this year to be less about accumulation and more about meaningful exchanges–of love, affection, and yes, a few thoughtful and specific gifts that express your gratitude for having the receiver in your lives. This idea that quantity equals love has become prevalent in our culture, and if you are now in a position (however forced) to try and turn that sleigh around, then by all means do so. A loving chat with your husband about each family member who you have overwhelmed with material possessions on previous holidays, and what you believe would be one item or gesture that would truly bring them joy is, I believe, well overdue. One certainly does not have to fire off an announcement to all and sundry notifying them that the well has run dry and there will be no more canapés flown in from Lausanne for Aunt Mildred thank you very much. But some sort of communication with your relatives—even at this late date—is necessary, explaining, perhaps, that the past two years have given your family time to reflect on what is truly important, and you’d like to try an experiment this year which is heavier on communal activities and reciprocal good deeds, and a bit lighter on material possessions.

Some members, especially grandparents, while understating perfectly your wishes to reduce your gift-giving and not holding it against you in any way, may themselves not be able to resist temptation when it comes to overloading the wee ones with items that all too soon find themselves at the swap shed. Forgive them.

Auntie Mac is certain that the gifts you yourself remember receiving are those that were memorable in their creativity, and which demonstrated that the giver had paid close attention to who you were. Their size, expense and quantity did not matter in the least. Even children appreciate gifts of an activity—an IOU for one local ball game, or a gift certificate of a riding lesson, and a small “companion” gift of a baseball or a horse pin. (Lars asked me to remind you that providing accompaniment and instruction on day-long ice fishing excursions are always appreciated; I will leave that up to your discretion).

This year may be a bit rocky, but you may find that other members of your family have, for varying reasons perhaps, the same mindset, and will also adopt this habit. Above all, no one will find fault with you. The trick, if one can call it that, is to continue to practice this principle of learning to live with less needless items throughout the year. In this way you can lead yourself, your husband, and your extended family toward a shared vision of putting people over things. Always.

Auntie Mac wishes all her neighbors a warm and peaceful holiday with friends and family, either in your home or held close in your heart.

Auntie Mac

Winter is not my favorite season. Any of the other three qualify as “my favorite” while I’m living in their midst, or longing for them. Perhaps this is why – as much as I love autumn, I hesitate to wish for its arrival, knowing the chapter that comes afterwards, so long and cold and bleak after the brief flame of fall. Summer as well, the succession of those perennials showing us how swiftly the season passes, its fleeting nature exacerbated as a symbol of freedom with its bare feet and its hammocks and its shores. But I long for spring, and I think that longing interferes with my appreciation for winter. It’s not the season itself, it’s the duration.  I know I would miss it. Winter is visually the loveliest season. As much as I adore gardens and their summer flowers, the tenderness of spring, the blaze of fall, winter is the prettiest time of year. Currier and Ives most inviting paintings illustrate our winters.

The first frost reminds us of the magical quality of the cold, powdering seed pods and golden rod fronds, riming the branches of briars and shrubs. Like jewels strewn across the world, the blades of grass, the rims of fallen leaves, glisten in the morning sun soon to melt the fragility, leaving us to anticipate the first snowfall. It’s always an exhilarating occasion.  Softly swirling snowflakes falling gently, silently, mesmerizing us with a lacey delicacy and an incomparable peace.  We allow ourselves to live in the moment when the first snowfall of the season visits us, rediscovering, momentarily, the wonder of our childhoods.

We watch as the snow accumulates. Spattering the seams of stone paths and stonewalls, creating a mosaic of white and gray and the greens of mosses and lichens, dusting the garden’s dried remains – rubdeckia becoming sugared gumdrops, sedums holding saucers of snow, sages turning into plump sculptures. Confetti sprinkling the limbs of trees, frosting the branches of evergreens, filling the twiggy baskets of shrubbery, the snow’s brush slowly illustrating New England’s legendary “Winter Wonderland”. We venture into this realm to scatter seeds for the birds, and to enjoy it. For while there’s nothing as peaceful as walking in the woods, enveloped with the silence of snowfall and the scent of pine, there is nothing as invigorating as playing in it afterwards.  As alluring as it is, we leave the pristine surface unblemished until it’s marked with the footprints of rabbits, criss-crossed with the swift travels of deer.

Though the “Snow Globe” world of blizzards isn’t as embraced as the gentler versions, such storms result in a singular feeling of coziness not quite realized in other weathers. We live on our islands, the blinding, slippery, drifting conditions preventing us from leaving our homes. While the whirling white surrounds us, with hot cocoa, hearths, robes, blankets, good books, we tuck ourselves in. The snow spins and swirls, slants and sifts, splatters the window panes, thickens. Visibility lessens. The wind whirs, rattles, howls. Drifts mound, white waves across a white ocean, white sands sifting across a white shore. And when it ends, the sun soars into winter’s signature azure sky, sparkling the snow, brightening the ruby berries, the streaks of cardinals, the blizzard leaving a field of diamonds in its wake, dazzling us.

Light plays such an integral role in winter and its landscape.  There are few things as breathtaking as sunshine after an ice storm. The world glitters. Sunlight polishes the trunks of trees, their branches glazed with ice, reaching and curving to host the slimmer twigs splayed across the sky like iridescent lace. Weeping willows, pears, cherries, cascades of twinkling silver, are particularly lovely, as are colorful shrubs, those with garnet or golden limbs glowing through the ice that coats them. Individual needles, blades of grass, berries become encased with ice, and the twinkling stalactites of icicles drip from the frozen ridges of rocks and roofs.  It’s a frail picture, as the sun, responsible for this magic, also breaks the spell; we listen for the tinkling of the ice chips falling from the trees to scatter thickly, the lawn becoming a glistening blanket.

The sun itself in its rising and its setting is most spectacular in the winter when the horizons flush with deep pastels, pink, lavender and mauve, plum, purple, rose, before blending into the blue of the sky as the sun climbs, or descends, the dome. Or blazing horizons of bright oranges and reds, streaking across the sky, coloring the clouds, seeping through the black silhouettes of trees, until the sun pierces through with its brilliant splash of gold, shimmering the whole, or sinks, its last sliver of light slipping from view, the flames extinguished as the blackness consumes them.

Between the leaching away of sunlight and complete darkness, there’s the fleeting blue light of certain winter evenings. It’s a rare and temporary coloring of the world; everything, for a few moments, becomes a gentle blue, the receptive surface of the snow reflecting the blueness the sky harbors until night falls, the color fading rapidly, disappearing as suddenly as it arrived. It’s one of my favorite aspects of New England’s winter, a well-kept secret, the evanescent magic of walking in the midst of dusk’s blue snow.

As the solstice nears, the light closes in on us, gray creeping into the darkness earlier in the morning, gray darkening for an early night. I’ve never met anyone who relished this aspect of the annual cycle. Yet the stars are sharper in winter, a map of sparkling pin pricks illustrating the constellations, and the moon is more luminous, glowing against the snow with the radiance of almost daylight. And there’s a sense of burrowing which comes with the lessening of the light, a feeling of early rest.

I realize I’ve used far too many superlatives, yet that’s what winter is – extremes. Extremes of darkness and of light, of storminess and of peace, of isolation and of togetherness, as we slowly inch toward the solstice, and swiftly toward winter’s crowning glory – Christmas.  I love it all – the bustle, the lights, the music, the movies. I love Radio City Music Hall and the homespun performances on our own town stage. I love the blinking city lights and the twinkling candles in our neighborhood windows. I love the tree at Rockefeller Center, and the little one at Town Hall. I love the Christmas tree in all its phases — the selecting, the cutting, the stringing of lights, of popcorn and cranberries, the decorating. I love decking the halls, baking the cookies, sending the cards, wrapping the presents, reading the stories, singing the songs. I love caroling to our neighbors, and remembering them, year after year, when they’re no longer on our list of elders to visit. What cherished memories they left us with, Leila ringing her jingle bell, Jane on her porch, Phyllis in her kitchen, Peggy at her door, Eleni, singing along.  And I love the Mass on Christmas Eve, at the Congregational Church, Howard Valley, Our Lady of Lourdes, the crèche, “Silent Night”. I love to reclaim all the magic.

We’re so blessed these last few years to have a small child in our home for Christmas. There’s no greater testament to the spirit of Christmas than a child’s sincere solemnity at the manger, and faithful belief in a jolly old elf who makes “glad the heart of childhood”, spending Christmas Eve spreading good will and validating their goodness. Christmas is, indeed, for children, and the child in all of us.

Dayna McDermott Arriola

The editorial board takes this opportunity to thank those listed here, whose generous donations fund The Hampton Gazette, making it possible for us to bring news of our town and our neighbors to all of our residents. This issue contains an addressed envelope for your continued support, for which we thank you.

We would also like to recognize our advertisers; it is an honor to promote your goods and your services on our pages. We thank those who patronized our annual fundraiser – the Memorial Day Chicken Barbecue – how wonderful it was to return to our traditional commemoration this year. And all, near and far, who purchase the town’s annual calendar, and especially those who shared their fireplaces, and their artistry, for 2023’s, “Hampton Hearths”.

Lastly, to all who contributed news of the town – its governance and its organizations, and all who shared their personal stories, photographs, poems, and opinions – we thank you. We are very appreciative of everything you give us; it’s your presence on our pages which makes The Hampton Gazette a community newspaper.

The Editorial Board of The Hampton Gazette

Platinum

Linda & Roger Burton

Elizabeth Regan

Peter Witkowski

Gold

William Archer

Dayna & Juan Arriola

Brenda & Stephen Dinsmore

Michelle & Kyle Donahue

Patricia Donahue

Donald Geer & Cynthia Locke

Kaye & Scott Johnson

Nicholas & Rachel Maxwell

John T. Russell – To All Vets

Leslie White

Silver

Deborah Barton

Leon & Tisha Chaine

Paul Cichon

Mark & Beverly Davis

Wayne DeCarli

Dale & David Demontigny

Bethany Desjardin

Peter & Nora Dickinson

Paul & Deborah Fitzgerald

David & Ruth Halbach

Deborah Halbach

Maryellen Halloran

Gordon Hamersley

Robert & Debre Inman

Andrea Kaye

Sonja & Peik Larsen

Andrea Quintana

Marjorie Romano

Bruce Spaman

Donna Tommelleo

Marjorie Trowbridge

Nathaniel & Diana Woodward

Friends

Anita & Michael Barnard

Richard Bass & Melinda Fields

Cynthia Bezanson

Dorothy Blocker

Lula Blocton & Shirley Bernstein

Patricia Boss

Mark Brett & Michelle Berting-Brett

Morris Burr Jr. and III

Walter Butler

Paul & Carol Crawford

Mary Drader

Deanne & John Donahue

Angela Fichter

Lucretica Flammang & Scott Deshong

Alan & Joan Freeman

Deborah Fuller

Richard Gagne

Mary Ellen Halloran

Ann Hamlin

Patricia Jones & Robert Dibble

Nicolette Letourneau

Eleanor & Peter Linkkila

Margaret & Christopher McKleroy

George & Muriel Miller

Michelle & Martin Mlyniec

Kathie Halbach Moffitt

Penny Newbury

Valija Norris

Louise Russell & Gayle LaFlamme

Mark & Jessica Samios

Paul & Laura Tedeschi

Jerrold & Janice Trecker

Peter & Mona Tobin

Thomas & Valerie Tucker

Teresa & Dale Warner

Judy Wilson & Richard Schenk

Our publishing year begins in February with the recognition of a resident who exemplifies the spirit of volunteerism, neighborliness, and good citizenship. As we re-enter our communal environment, it’s particularly important this year to remind everyone that our small town thrives only through the efforts of committed individuals dedicated to the notion of “community”. We have also honored local organizations, such as the Fire Department, and recognized citizens for life-time achievements, as most of the recipients have a history of contributing their time and talent, resources and energy, as public servants and as volunteers, into making our town a wonderful place to live.

Our Citizen of the Year is chosen from the candidates you recommend, so please send your nominations by January 6, 2023 to: hamptongazette@yahoo.com,or Hampton Gazette, P.O. Box 101, Hampton, CT., 06247, or contact any member of the editorial board.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you.

The Editorial Board