New Castle DIGEST: Holiday Edition ❄️
City of New Castle Events & Info for Late Autumn 2022
This DIGEST is a bit different… With so many great events coming up, the Community Calendar is first. And we’re posting extra early on this Black Friday to remind readers before they go “door busting” that many of our local shops will be offering great deals for Small Business Saturday tomorrow! Where you can, please ‘Shop Small!’
I. Community Event Calendar
DECEMBER:
12/1 - Wreath Workshop (Day 2) at the Arsenal, 9am to 12pm.
While materials last, guests can make their own gorgeous wreath for a $25 donation.12/3 - Breakfast with Santa! at Good Will Fire Company, 8 to 11:30am.
Enjoy breakfast prepared by the Historic NC Hundred Lions Club and meet Santa.12/3 - Holiday HOOPLA 5K Walk/Run through New Castle, 10am.
Starts at St. Peter’s School. Sponsored/organized by Community Collaboration of Delaware, benefitting CCD’s programs for kids and adults.12/4 - St. Peter the Apostle Christmas Bazaar, 9am to 6pm.
9-11am Breakfast with Santa, 12-6pm St. Anthony’s Society Spaghetti Dinner. With vendor tables, White Elephant, bake sale and Santa’s Worskshop of gifts…12/6 - Trustees of the New Castle Common (Open) Meeting, 7pm.
12/9 - Fezziwig’s Ball at New Castle Historical Society (already sold out).
12/10 - The Spirit of Christmas in Old New Castle, 10am to 5pm.
Sponsored by the City, NCHS and NC Presbyterian Church, this beloved annual event has free performances and refreshments, crafts and creations for sale, carolers in colonial costumes, and holiday-ready private homes open to tours once again! Proceeds benefit Friendship House. The event is capped off with the lighting of the city Christmas tree.
*** Updated, Complete Spirit of Christmas details HERE.12/10 - Winter Festival & Market at New Castle Public Library, 10am to 4pm.
Visit the Library for its 2nd annual winter festival offering special holiday Story Times, a dozen great vendors, a Bake Sale and the NC Library Friends’ huge Winter Book Sale!12/10 - Live Music at the Booth House, 6pm.
12/10 - Diamond Swing at Zollie’s, 7pm.
12/10 - LIT for the Holidays at Read House & Gardens, 5 to 8pm.
Ring in the season like the Lairds, whose 1920s parties and soirees put the Read House at the center of New Castle’s social life. Includes food, numerous exciting art installations, rides in a classic Rolls-Royce, outdoor jazz and firepits, a cash bar and more! $15-30.
12/11 - Advent Lessons & Carols at Immanuel on the Green, 4pm.
“A unique experience of spiritual … refreshment through music, scripture, and prayer.”12/13 - City Council Regular Monthly Meeting, 7pm at the Senior Center.
12/15 - Amstel Live: Twinkling Trees & Stuffed Stockings, 6:30 to 8:30pm.
Join NCHS to explore Christmastime during three periods - the 1770s, the 1860s and the 1920s, with stories and historically inspired snacks and beverages. Guests must be 21+.12/17 - NC Little League Holiday Party & Toy Drive, 11am to 2pm.
Join NCLL for games, crafts, food and Santa, and please bring an unwrapped toy or book to donate for kids who are less fortunate.12/19 - Planning Commission Meeting, 6:30pm in the NCPD Community Room.
12/20 - Sea Level Rise Task Force Meeting, 7pm in the NCPD Community Room.
12/22 to 1/2 - Winter Break for Colonial School District (all schools and offices closed).
On-Going Events
Regular Historic Tours at:
New Castle Court House Museum (Weds-Sunday)
New Castle Historical Society (Weds-Sunday)
Read House & Gardens (Thurs-Sunday)
Historic New Castle Designer Show House remains open in the Van Dyke House at 400 Delaware to raise funds for the Sunday Breakfast Mission (check for hours).
Second Tuesday Mix & Mingle at Zollie’s Jazz Cucina, 4 to 7pm.
Meet neighbors amid beer, wine and spirit tastings and a Tapas-style food buffet.Fourth Friday Art Loop at participating shops and galleries around downtown, including the Opera House, Mo’zArt Gallery, Cobblestone Antiques, Landmark Antiques, and more!
Remember, you can always check our Facebook Events Tab for an up-to-date ‘master calendar’ of what’s going on in town (that’s listed on that site, anyway)…
II. November News Round-Up
20+ Local Victims of USPS Check Fraud by ‘Red Flag Bandits’
New Castle City Police are continuing to investigate the pernicious mail fraud scheme that has now affected nearly two dozen local residents. NCPD has been working with several other agencies at all levels to crack the case, which has centered on a group called the ‘Red Flag Bandits,’ who have also swindled folks in Harford County, MD.
Problems in New Castle began a few months ago with checks and payment info disappearing from people’s home mailboxes. Then a Postal key was stolen, giving the thieves direct access to the USPS mailboxes next to the Post Office.
The locks were changed, but the problems persist, according to NCPD Chief Richard McCabe. Based on suspicions that the problem may involve someone ‘inside’ the post office, McCabe is now pushing federal law enforcement partners to get more actively involved in moving the investigation forward.
While it remains safe to use USPS generally, please be very careful when sending or agreeing to receive money through the mail until these thieves are caught!
Econ Development Job Re-Listed amid Council Friction over Emails
City Council this month rescinded a recent resolution asking Bill Barthel to negotiate with Mike Connolly of NC Historical Society to create a contract for a city development coordinator to work within that institution. Mr. Barthel will now re-list the job as a one-year city position, to be hired by and answer to him.
Mayor Quaranta implicitly underscored the need for someone to fill the role in his announcement at the meeting that Printpak, a mid-sized employer just outside city limits, will soon close its New Castle facility.
Discussions around this topic have proven difficult for Council, following sharp disagreements over the initial process of establishing the job description and seeking candidates. Council president Mike Platt has alleged that members Joe Day, Valarie Leary and Russ Smith “colluded” via email to offer the position to a personal choice. He claimed they had violated the state’s Freedom of Information Act on this and a previous occasion, and announced he had filed an ethics complaint.
Day, Leary and Smith have all rejected Platt’s characterization of their discussions, describing them as “information sharing” around the process rather than decision making outside of quorum. Ms. Leary has also noted that one of the emails to which Mr. Platt refers was sent in error. None of the communications in question have been shared with the public.
Those accused by Mr. Platt have, in turn, accused the council president of abusing his power over the agenda to force some issues while sidelining or slow-walking others.
City Topics has submitted a FOIA request for the correspondence in question, to which a response will be due in mid-December.
New Bike Trail to Connect Penn Farm to School Lane
Abandoned for costs when the trail along Frenchtown Road (Rt. 273) was built five years ago, a trail connecting that road to the Pennwood neighborhood is now set to add almost 1/2 mile to the local pedestrian and bicycle network.
The new trail will be on the very edge of the City of New Castle, between Penn Farm and William Penn High School, running along an existing state easement there. The trail will be heavy duty - 10 feet wide and extra sturdy - to enable use by maintenance and public works vehicles.
Work is expected to begin next summer, with DelDOT footing the whole bill and no projected impacts on traffic.
City Announces Changes to Winter Yard Waste Pick-ups
Administrator Barthel this month announced that, from mid-January through the end of February next year, New Castle will experiment with suspending weekly, city-wide yard waste pick-ups for the coldest part of winter.
Presently, two trucks cover the entire city every Wednesday, year-round. However, Barthel noted that the tonnage collected normally drops steeply between January’s last Christmas trees and the Spring garden prep that begins in early March. In 2021, for example, the city picked up nearly 7 tons of yard waste in January - much of it Christmas trees - then only 1 ton in February.
During the six-week break, residents will be able to call Public Works (at 302-322-9801) by Monday to schedule a pick-up that Wednesday, with no fee. Barthel said he hopes this will provide the service needed while saving on fuel and maintenance costs.
App-Based Bike Rentals Coming to the Wharf
Outdoor recreation start-up Fin, headed by Maryland entrepreneur Kelly Benson, will soon bring a rack of four rental bicycles to the Wharf as a leisure amenity for visitors and residents. The company currently operates at the River Walk in Wilmington, Chesapeake City, and a few other locations in MD.
During discussion of the matter at city council, Russ Smith expressed concerns about attracting more cars to the busy Wharf. However, Benson noted that putting recreational equipment (Fin also does kayaks at other locations) right in front of people where they are apt to use it spontaneously is an important part of his company’s model.
Renting would require the company’s app, with which users can “unlock” the bike(s) from the automated rack. Costs: there will be a $10 ‘unlock fee’ for each bicycle, plus $5 per half hour of use. The bikes will be for round-trip use only, with the app showing the geotagged area in which they are to be kept.
Council authorized city administrator Bill Barthel to work out and execute the final contract. The city will get $1 of each unlock fee.
III. ‘ICYMI:’ November Media Highlights…
Our socials, like our streets, were a bit quiet this month - a calm before the coming storm of Christmas, Hanukkah and other Holiday To-Do’s…
Still, there are always beautiful and interesting details to notice around New Castle. As days grew colder, we caught:
a stunning field of multi-hued Cosmos blooming in the Bull Hill Meadow maintained by the Trustees,
a gaggle of geese dramatically back-lit in Battery Park,
visible sunbeams on a misty morning at the Hermitage Natural Area during its Trail Maintenance Party,
spiffy, sleek new Welcome signs at New Castle’s three gateways into town,
an inviting path toward the Dutch House, along the edge of the Green, and
the cracking, degraded blacktop of the Battery Park basketball court, where earlier this month the Trustees removed the rims pending court resurfacing.
Check it all out in the gallery below, and follow @CityTopicsNCDE on Facebook and Instagram for regular News, Views and Stuff-to-Do in New Castle. For more local beauty, we also recommend @readhouseandgardens and the @hermitagenaturalarea!
IV. In Defense of Thanksgiving (A Light Editorial)
Despite an annual chorus of hand-wringing about how much earlier Christmas seems to come every year, some stores in 2022 began stocking stockings and such in October. October! Apparently some folks like to start preparing for winter’s mega-holiday in the middle of autumn.
And I dig that. I love Christmas, both the sacred and secular parts. The holiday’s expansionist tendencies make total sense: Christmas is fun, and kids especially look forward to it all year. We associate Christmas with sleigh rides, snowball fights, warm family meals, fun holiday events, beautiful decorations and, of course, gifting.
Thanksgiving is, I think, widely perceived as less fun. It offers the ‘warm family meals,’ and a break from the grind (for some). But big family dinners have become fraught affairs for many, as cultural and political disagreements seem to get harder to either square or set aside over turkey and fixings. And turkey day lacks the feast of distractions offered by Christmas, substituting a side dish of guilt-laden modern confusion over the true legacy of the event we’re memorializing. Not fun.
But it used to be... Thanksgiving used to be a happening holiday!
During World War II, this distinctively US tradition helped keep not only families, but our broader community united during an extremely difficult time. School dances, civic parties, interfaith church services, parades… While we still get to watch the Mummers on TV, in decades past, Thanksgiving was a participatory celebration, of which the feast was just the culmination.
Check out the gallery below for nine war-era examples of the great goings-on that used to accompany this holiday.
I’m not one to pine for “the way things used to be” for the sake of tradition. And I hope that people who take the reformed Scrooge’s exhortation to “keep Christmas all the year” almost literally, continue to enjoy winter’s wonders whenever they want.
But Christmas and our collective annual self-reflection a week later have become laden with expectations, especially self-expectations. Did I have a good year? What should my goals be? Is my family proud of me? Can I give my kids enough? What do I deserve? Who and what do I owe? There are reasons that, for many, stress increases heavily around the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Thanksgiving - pared down as it now is - still bids us to shift our perspective from how we want our lives to be, to what we are grateful for. It’s right there in the name, after all.
A ‘Crusader Against Christmas Creep’ I am not. And until the incentives to sell holiday merch earlier and earlier change, shops are just doing what they do in a free market. But in a world where so many feel adrift from the institutions that once bound society together, I would love to see our late-November institution restored to some of its old glory. We need more reminders of what we have, and that what we have goes farther when we share.
And that we can do hard things as a community. That includes having frank conversations about and attempting to reckon with the history of Native American genocide and displacement, and the ways our First People are often still marginalized. “The best way out is through,” as Frost taught us. That applies within our own families and modern communities too. We have to engage with each other.
In uncertain times - long ago and now - Thanksgiving is a moment simply to rejoice in the knowledge that, together, we can make it through another winter.
Happy Thanksgiving, dear reader. Gobble, Gobble.
V. A Season of Giving…
With the national celebration of plenty now behind us and even colder months ahead, it is important to remember those who do not have enough. Rising food and fuel costs hit the smallest budgets especially hard.
Below, please check out a few of the organizations in our area working hard to keep families together and safe through the holidays and the winter beyond, and consider helping in what ways you can…
Toys for Tots Drive at NC Court House Museum (donate during open hours)
Thanks for reading - your time and interest in what’s going on in this beautiful, complex, historic little city is always appreciated.
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