Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo Makes the Holidays Merry and Bright at Breakfast with Frosty and Friends

Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo located on 1875 Noble Avenue, Bridgeport, has a longtime family tradition: Breakfast with Frosty! A full buffet breakfast in the Carousel Building includes a visit with Santa and his elf, photo opportunities with Frosty the Snowman, Stripes the Tiger, and Thirsty the Penguin, carousel rides and lots of family fun. These breakfasts sell out every year, but there’s still time for local families from around the region to enjoy the holidays at the Zoo! Pre-Registration is required: https://www.beardsleyzoo.org/breakfast-with-frosty.html

Breakfast with Frosty requires online reservation & pre-payment is required to attend. All days but December 14th are $20 per person for Zoo Members and $25 per person for non-Members. December 14 (Special Activities Day!) prices are $25 for members and $30 for non-members. Children 2 years old and younger are free.

Frosty will be visiting the Zoo on Saturday and Sunday, December 7 and 8, Saturday and Sunday, December 14 and 15 and Saturday and Sunday, December 21 and 22. In addition to Frosty the Snowman, kids will visit with Santa Claus and his Head Elf, Stripes the Tiger, and Thirsty the Penguin

About Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo

Let your curiosity run wild! Connecticut’s only zoo, celebrating its 97th year, features 300 animals representing primarily North and South American species. Guests won’t want to miss our Amur tigers and leopards, Mexican and Red wolves, and Golden Lion tamarin. Other highlights include our Spider Monkey Habitat, the Natt Family Red Panda Habitat, the prairie dog exhibit with “pop-up” viewing areas, plus the Pampas Plains featuring maned wolves, Chacoan peccaries and Giant anteaters. Guests can grab a bite at the Peacock Café, eat in the Picnic Grove, and enjoy a ride on our colorful, indoor carousel. For more information, visit beardsleyzoo.org.

Images – Jack Bradley

WonderSpark Puppets present The Gingerbread Man

On November 30 from 2 pm to 3 pm the Wilton Historical Society located on 224 Danbury Road is hosting a special puppet show from NY that is noted as the best puppet theatre in NYC from 2 pm to 3 pm.

The show called Run, run as fast as you can can – you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man is the classic story of a little running cookie – with a Christmas twist. Kids will watch the Gingerbread Man outwit and outrun various hungry animals – and figure out what he really wants for Christmas. During the show, the children will listen, laugh, interact directly with characters, and can ask questions about puppetry and storytelling afterward. This ancient art form engages the imagination and kickstarts a love of theater at an early age. Best of all, you get a theater experience in a historic barn!

After the show, there will be a puppet craft activity. This event is $10 per person and tickets are available online. To get your tickets, click here.

Cider, Cookies and Shopping @ Fairfield Museum and History Center

This weekend, the Fairfield Museum and History Center located on Beach Street is offering several exciting promotions. On Saturday, November 30 they are celebrating small business Saturday by offering a card special.  Folks visiting the museum gift shop, which is chock full of goodies who purchase five packs of cards by Onion Hill by Kassie Foss will get one free! 

The fun ramps up on Sunday, December 1 when the museum store will give visitors a reusable Fairfield Museum shopping bag and a limited edition Woodberry pewter ornament with every purchase while supplies last. 

To add to the festivities, the Fairfield Museum and History Center is offering free cookies and cider all weekend long. The shop is located at 370 Beach Street and is open from 10 am to 4 pm with plenty of on-site parking.  Another perk is that the museum never charged sales tax! 

Save the date for the Holiday Express Train opening night on December 6 from 5 pm to 8 pm that is kicked off with the tree lighting on the Fairfield Green. The hours for the Holiday Express Train are Monday – Thursday 10am – 1pm, Special Friday Evening Hours: 10am – 7pm, Saturdays & Sundays: 10am – 4pm, December 23, 24, 26, 30 and 31: 10am – 4pm, Closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day

The Trained Eye: The Art of Railroads & Stations @ Lockwood Mathews Mansion

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum will open a new exhibition entitled, The Trained Eye: The Art of Railroads & Stations, which will run through Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020.

A subject matter explored by some of the great artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Claude Monet, Edward Hopper, and Camille Pissarro, railroads and stations are familiar places that continue to inspire contemporary artists and impact society and the environment. “The artists featured in the exhibition, The Trained Eye,” said Ms. Ingis, “will look at this kaleidoscope of images and colors and render their own interpretation with works that range from photo-realism to post-impressionism and in a variety of media including oil, watercolor, acrylics, etchings, and photography.”

Curated by artist and Trustee Gail Ingis and Trustee Julyen Norman, the exhibition will feature artists: David Bravo, David Dunlop, Julie O’Connor, DeAnn Prosia, Helen Roman, Alexsander Rotner, Cathy Russell, Anthony Santomauro, Norm Siegel, and Rob Zuckerman.

The contemporary art exhibitions are sponsored in part by Gail Ingis and Tom Claus. The Museum’s 2019 cultural and educational programs are made possible in part by generous funding from LMMM’s Founding Patrons: The Estate of Mrs. Cynthia Clark Brown, LMMM’s 2019 Season Distinguished Benefactors: The City of Norwalk and The Maurice Goodman Foundation. The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a National Historic Landmark. For more information on schedules and programs please visit www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, e-mail info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, or call 203-838-9799.

Historic House Tour in Kent

A special November tour is taking place in the charming town of Kent that is hosted by the Kent Historical Society on November 9 from 12 noon to 4:30 p.m. Houses on the Kent Historical Society’s House tour will feature the architecture of Sherwood Mills and Smith AIA. Tickets are $50 in advance and $60 on the day of the tour. For your tickets click here.

This tour features six of Kent’s architectural gems that have been preserved with great care. This house tour will give residents and visitors an inside look at homes and structures built in the first decade of the 18th century through a modernist mid-century and help them understand how people lived and are living in this bucolic community.

There is an interesting variety of home on the tour. Some were grand dwellings in their day, others were much more modest. The highlight is that the variety of homes offer a number of curiosities and beauty that tour-goers will appreciate on this journey into the past.

The tour starts at Seven Hearths Museum on 4 Studio Hill Road in Kent, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Ticket holders will get a map and a description of the houses and are free to go on a self-guided tour of the homes. Tickets may also be purchased that day at the Seven Hearths from 11 a.m. through the afternoon. It promises to be a fun event — who doesn’t like peering back in time in old houses?

Spooktacular Witch’s Dungeon!

This will be the 55th season for the annual Witch’s Dungeon Halloween Classic Movies Museum in Bristol, the longest-running exhibition of its kind started in 1966. This wax style museum is a tribute to the actors and make-up artists that gave audiences classic movie monsters. A highlight of the event is the guest appearance of Argyle Goolsby (musician Steve Matthews) plus the screening of the Mel Brooks classic movie, Young Frankenstein on real film at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 25.

The Graveyard Of Classic Ghouls sets the atmosphere as you enter the dungeon where accurate life-size figures of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, and others are featured in 13 scenes or dioramas based on the vintage movie chillers. Many of the figures are made from the actual life casts of the actor’s faces, plus some original costumes or props, in a wax museum style setting with special voice tracks by Vincent Price, Mark Hamill, and John Agar. Many Hollywood props are on display and vintage films will be shown in the auditorium on “real” film until 10 p.m.

While waiting for each wax museum tour, you can view actual film props, actor’s life casts and movie posters, or step into our film room, to view classic silent horror movies, shown on film, not video. Featuring far more life-size figures & original movie props than we have ever had on display before! Figures based on the classic films of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and more.

The location for Witches Dungeon is 98 Summer Street in Bristol at the Bristol Historical Society. The hours are weekends in October, Friday through Sunday evenings, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Oct. 25-27 and Oct. 31- Nov. 3. The Museum is not recommended for children under age 7. A $6 donation is suggested. For additional information visit http://www.preservehollywood.org.