After Millerton's Parade of Lights, December Moves Down the Valley to Wassaic

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, children will sit at tables in the annex of the NorthEast-Millerton Library between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and decorate gingerbread houses. The houses will not go home with them. They go into shop windows along Main Street and stay there until the winners are announced at Millerton's Winter Market on Saturday, December 19.

That gives the houses three weeks on display, and those three weeks follow the shape of the whole season in this part of Dutchess County. Millerton's busiest night of the year comes at the end of November. For the next two weekends, the action moves south to a converted mill in Wassaic. Then it comes back north for one more Saturday on Main Street. The windows keep the village in the season while the action is elsewhere.

November loads the calendar before the parade

The season starts well before the Festival of Lights. On Saturday, November 7, Troutbeck in Amenia hosts artist Delano Dunn in conversation with curator Mickalene Thomas, presented in collaboration with the Wassaic Project. The talk is a preview of how the Amenia arts calendar and the Wassaic arts calendar share a stage through the winter.

The following Saturday, November 14, three events in three hamlets fall on the same day:

• Millerton Fire Company Holiday Vendor Fair, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Millerton Fire Department, 24 Century Boulevard.
• Community quilting workshop with Natalie Baxter, free and open to all ages, noon to 4 p.m. at the Wassaic Firehouse, 27 Firehouse Road, run by the Wassaic Project.
• Apple-pie workshop at Troutbeck, with candle dipping there the next day, Sunday, November 15.

The fire company's fair opens holiday shopping in Millerton 13 days before the parade. Natalie Baxter, the artist leading the quilting workshop, is also on the list of featured artists for the Wassaic Project's December market, so November 14 also points ahead to the mill.

A week later, Wethersfield Estate & Garden hosts Music Mountain's Erinys Quartet with clarinetist Oskar Espina Ruiz in the Carriage House on November 21 and 22. Each afternoon runs from 2:30 to 5 p.m., with the program at 3 p.m. and a reception at 4 p.m. It is the quietest weekend on the calendar, and the last one before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving weekend, hour by hour

Troutbeck serves Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, November 26. The next morning the season moves to Millerton for the 2026 Festival of Lights, which Visit Millerton published on October 22. Friday's schedule runs like this:

1. 9:30 a.m. Doors open at The Moviehouse for a free 10 a.m. screening of Elf. Every child gets a free raffle ticket for prizes from local businesses.
2. 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. NBT Bank pours free hot cocoa from its tent in Veterans Park.
3. Noon The children's raffle drawing in Veterans Park, with local gift certificates and toys as prizes.
4. 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Cookie decorating at the North East Community Center.
5. 4:30 p.m. Carolers line up on Main Street, and the singing starts at 4:45.
6. 5:15 p.m. The Millerton Fire Company's Festival of Lights Parade.

The Millerton Fire Company shows up at both ends of November. It hosts the vendor fair on the 14th and the parade on the 27th, which links the start of holiday shopping to the night that marks the season for most of the village.

Saturday, November 28, is the day the Main Street calendar changes. The NECC Millerton Farmers Market runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Millerton Methodist Church, at the corner of Dutchess Avenue and Main Street. NECC lists its regular Saturday season as May 16 through November 28 at 6 Dutchess Avenue, so festival Saturday is also the last Saturday of the regular market season. NECC describes its farmers market program as year-round, but the familiar Saturday rhythm of the past six months ends that afternoon.

The gingerbread session at the library annex happens that same morning. The houses go into the windows on the day the regular market closes, and they keep Main Street in the season once the market and the parade are over. Troutbeck closes the weekend on Sunday, November 29, with a paper-mâché ornament workshop.

Maxon Mills takes the next two weekends

From December 5, the weekend center of the season moves to Wassaic. The Wassaic Project's Winter Wonderland Market page says the market "is coming back" to Maxon Mills, 37 Furnace Bank Road, and lists December 5 and 6 and December 12 and 13, noon to 5 p.m. each day. The page doesn't print a year, but its first Saturday falls on the same December 5 as the Project's 2026 winter exhibition opening. The Project says the market supports its programs, its artist alumni and local makers, with art kits, stocking stuffers, one-of-a-kind pieces, creative gift wrap and a selection of print editions and artworks by artist-in-residence alumni. Co-founder and co-director Bowie Zunino curates and hosts it.

The featured artist list is long. It includes Fern Apfel, Eve Biddle, Mark Dion, Liz Nielsen, Dana Sherwood and Polly Shindler, along with Natalie Baxter from the November quilting workshop.

On the market's first Saturday, the mill also opens its winter exhibition. "Friday, I'm In Love" runs from December 5, 2026, through March 13, 2027, Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The opening reception is that Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. at Maxon Mills. On December 5, the reception takes up the last two hours of market time in the same building, so one afternoon at the mill covers both.

The second market weekend overlaps with Troutbeck's busiest December Saturday. On December 12, Troutbeck hosts gingerbread-house decorating and opens Richard Saja's exhibition "Toile Interrupted," which runs until April 18, 2027. With the Wassaic market open from noon to 5 p.m., the Amenia and Wassaic ends of the corridor have a full day of programming that Saturday.

December 19 brings the season back to Main Street

After two weekends at the mill, the season comes back north. Visit Millerton's Winter Market on Saturday, December 19, is where the gingerbread contest ends and the winners are announced. The houses decorated on November 28 will have spent the entire stretch in shop windows, through the Wassaic weekends and Troutbeck's December 12 gingerbread session. They link the parade in late November to a market three weeks later.

The same day, Troutbeck hosts holiday-cookie decorating. On Sunday, December 20, it brings in Sova Puppet Theater for a storytelling and puppet-making workshop. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners at Troutbeck on December 24 and 25 close out the calendar.

At Maxon Mills, "Friday, I'm In Love" stays open Thursday through Sunday into March, after the markets, the parade and the window displays have ended. From mid-December to mid-March, Wassaic's exhibition and Troutbeck's "Toile Interrupted" both stay on view, keeping the arts calendar going between Amenia and Wassaic all winter.

Some of our favorite conversations happen in December, over the course of a weekend that runs from Main Street in Millerton down to the mill in Wassaic. If the season has you thinking about what your own place in this corridor is worth, Paula Redmond will gladly sit down with you, without any pressure. Request a Confidential Home Valuation whenever you're ready.