This weekend, March 19th & 20th, join maple producers all over NH for a celebration of spring.
Visit a participating sugar house and learn for yourself just how this ancient tradition is carried on. Many locations are offering a yummy pancake breakfast with real maple syrup.
After breakfast, take a tour, and learn about the sugaring process. Taste many different maple concoctions, including maple cream, maple milk, maple snow cones, maple kettle corn and much more! Several locations will also have crafts and different activities for kids.
Click Here to view this year’s participating sugar houses’ schedule of events.
‘Tis the season to enjoy holiday events, and there are many magical options to experience in New Hampshire. Whether you’re cuddled up with your kids for a snowy sleigh ride, viewing spectacular light displays, or judging a cookie tasting contest, you’ll be making special holiday memories with your family.
Consider the following options this December:
Cookies, Snow & Fairy Tales
Waterville Valley
Friday, Dec. 10
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Talk about a “sweet” event. Attendees can sample cookies baked fresh from local restaurants around the Town Square shops. Participants who visit the shops and redeem a coupon get to sample a different cookie at each location and then vote for their favorite. Other activities will include a coffee tasting, candy cottage workshop, candy cottages on display, a holiday ice skating party, Santa Claus reading a children’s book, and a visit from Mo the Balloon Baffoon. For more information, visit their website.
Victorian Christmas
Tamworth, New Hampshire
Mid December
Take a break from the Wii, put down your iPhone and enjoy the simpler pleasures of a Victorian Christmas. Tour the Captain Enoch Remick House, with its festive Victorian-era decorations. Sip wassail and nibble gingersnaps at the museum center, which offers an array of Christmas foods and drinks. Try your hand at making Victorian crafts and see how trees were decorated before electricity. For more info visit: www.remickmuseum.org.
A Christmas Carol
Various locations, including The Palace Theater in Manchester (through December 19) and The Leddy Center in Epping (through December 17)
Take your family to see a classic Christmas tale… As Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up the morning before Christmas, he has no idea he is being watched by an old friend with the help of three ghostly companions. Today will be Scrooge’s final test before he gets the visit of his life and finds out the true meaning of Christmas. For more information, including ticket prices, visit www.palacetheatre.org and www.leddycenter.org/Christmas.html.
Candlelight Stroll
Strawberry Banke, Portsmouth, NH
Saturday and Sunday, December 11-12 & 18-19, 2010
Saturdays from 5:00pm-9:00pm
Sundays from 4:00pm-8:00pm
Experience a local favorite. Stroll through New Hampshire’s oldest waterfront neighborhood and enjoy:
Historic houses from four centuries decorated in period regalia
Hundreds of candles lighting the lanes and landscape
While every day is Christmas at Santa’s Village, Christmastime is “the most wonderful time of the year” at this holiday-themed amusement park. In December, Santa greets every child, and listens carefully as the children explain what they really want for Christmas. Mrs. Claus greets guests, offering them some warm wassail. Once the sun sets, view the beautiful lighting throughout the park. The park will be operating 14 rides (weather permitting), including the Skyway Sleigh Monorail, Santa’s Express Train, the Christmas Carousel and more. Take in a 3-D show, “A Tinkerdoodle Christmas,” a comedy about L. Fastidious Tinkerdoodle preparing Santa for his yearly journey on Christmas Eve. For more information, visit their website.
Sleigh Rides
Coppal House Farm, Lee, NH
Your family will be dashing through the snow in an amazing winter sleigh ride at Coppal House Farm in Lee. Known primarily for their intricate corn mazes and horse-drawn carriage rides in the fall, Coppal House also offers sleigh rides that provide lovely views of the snowy scenery along the 78-acre property. By request, you can even stop and sit by a warm campfire during your ride. For more information, visit www.nhcornmaze.com/SleighRides.html.
Charmingfare Farm
Candia, NH
Experience the magic of Christmas when you visit Charmingfare Farm this holiday season. Thousands of festive lights will put you in the holiday spirit, as you view holiday scenes on your way to the North Pole. Animated costumed characters greet visitors the trail. The family-friendly attractions include a horse-drawn sleigh ride, a petting zoo, a Nativity scene with live animals and gorgeous holiday decorations. Plan on at least 2 hours to experience their Lighted Winter Wonderland. For more information, visit www.charmingfare.com/lighted.php.
If you’re looking for something fun to do with your family, consider taking a factory tour. New England is home to a variety of interesting, unique companies that offer free (or inexpensive) tours – and many come complete with product samples. Participants of all ages will enjoy seeing how ice cream, toothpaste, maple syrup, soda, potato chips and beer are produced and packaged. Visitors can also see newspapers being printed, glassblowers creating works of art and much more.
Here is a sample of some of the more interesting tours in our area:
New Hampshire
Anheuser-Busch – When you think of a family adventure, you might not automatically think of a brewery tour, but visiting the Anheuser-Busch factory in Merrimack, NH really is entertaining for all ages. During the free tour, visitors will see how beer is brewed, fermented and packaged. Guests will also enjoy beautiful scenery, with gorgeous landscaping. Kids will love visiting the Clydesdale Hamlet, home to the world-famous Budweiser Clydesdales. Older (21+) guests will enjoy the complimentary beer tastings onsite. The gift shop offers a variety of Anheuser-Busch merchandise.
Parkers Sugar House – Folks at the Sugar House in Mason, NH make maple syrup the old-fashioned way, using a wood fire to create top-quality syrup with a distinctive flavor. This family-owned business has been around for decades and on the free tours, they demonstrate older methods of making the syrup – placing hot rocks into the sap – as well as more modern techniques, using a wood-fired evaporator. How sweet! The Sugar House is in full operation every March and April.
Conner Bottling Works – The Conner family has been producing and bottling Sqamscot Old Fashioned Beverages for five generations – dating all the way back to the Civil War. Visitors to their Newfields, NH plant can learn more about the company’s soda (or tonic), which comes in many delicious flavors. In the factory, which smells like melting popsicles, guests can watch the manufacturing and mixing of the syrup recipes and the conveyor filling glass bottles with carbonated water and syrup. Come visit NH’s last independent bottler, where the hard-working staff invites you to “Experience the Past… One Sip at a Time”!
Flag Hill Winery – Flag Hill’s spectacular vineyards in Lee, NH offers delicious wines and stunning views. Not all grapes can survive the cold New Hampshire winters, so Flag Hill carefully selected six varieties of grapes that thrive in this climate, producing and bottling all of their own wines onsite. They create delicious grape, fruit and dessert wines, as well as New Hampshire’s first port. Each spring and summer, they offer fruit wines, including new varieties such as blueberry. Visitors will enjoy the tours, samples and breathtaking views. Bring a picnic or enjoy a meal in their lovely dining room.
Maine
Toms of Maine – Are you curious about the how the products you use every day are made? Visit the Toms of Maine Factory in Sanford, ME and find out how toothpaste gets in the tube, how deodorant is made and more. Tours are held at specific times during the summer, reservations are required, not recommended for children under age 5.
Vermont
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream – I scream, you scream, we all scream for the Ben & Jerry’s tour. Visitors to the Waterbury, VT factory will learn about ice cream, as well as the company’s social mission. The half-hour tours start with a short “moovie”, followed by a tour of the ice cream production, where guests will learn how two childhood friends created a hugely successful, socially-conscious business. Then, guests can sample the flavors in the Scoop Shop and visit the gift shop for products with a socially responsible mission.
Cabot Creamery – It may sound cheesy, but a trip to the Cabot Creamery in Cabot, VT will be a “gouda” time for the whole family. Join a factory tour, where you can watch cheese makers in action, watch a video about the history of Vermont agriculture – and, of course, enjoy plenty of samples of Cabot’s specialty – cheddar cheese. In addition to cheese samples, visitors can visit the gift shop for an assortment of tasty made-in-Vermont products, including local micro-brews, wines and coffees. Tour admission is $2/person, children 12 and under are admitted free.
Simon Pearce – Visitors can watch the talented Simon Pearce glassblowers at work in their Windsor, VT factory. By blowing glass, craftsmen can produce vessels in a wide variety of shapes and sizes – which is a spectacular thing to watch. Their catwalk viewing gallery, located above the factory floor, provides a great vantage point of these skilled artisans. Guests can also see beautiful pottery being made and shop for stunning, unique products, including dishes, vases, lamps and more.
Massachusetts
The Cape Cod Potato Chip Company – For a family adventure that’s “all that and a bag of chips,” visit the Cape Code Potato Chip factory in Hyannis, MA. The company produces 150,000 bags of potato chips, popcorn, pretzels and tortilla chips each day. The free, self-guided factory tour takes about 30 minutes and is fun for all ages. You’ll end up at the factory store, which offers a variety of products and free samples that will make you cheer, “chip, chip hooray!”
The Boston Globe – In today’s Internet era, your family can still experience the wonders of a more “traditional” media outlet. The Boston Globe offers free tours of its Boston facility, including the printing plant. The hour-long tour includes a short videotape. Participants must be at least 9 years old and groups are limited to a maximum of 30 people. Tours are by reservation only and must be scheduled in advance.
There’s a wide array of interesting tours in New England – and across the country. For other ideas, visit: www.factorytoursusa.com.
My family loves New Hampshire Maple weekend! It is a sure sign that spring has arrived, and nothing beats the sweet smells and tastes of freshly made maple syrup.
Over 65 sugar houses across the state will welcome visitors this year on March 27th and 28th. Visit and learn how maple syrup is made. Taste free samples and enjoy a pancake breakfast, a horse-drawn ride, sap collecting, petting zoos, musical entertainment and more. Enjoy the smell of maple steam rising from the evaporator and the ambiance of a working sugar house.
According to the NH Maple Producers website, Native Americans were the first to discover the fact that sap from maple trees could be processed into maple syrup and sugar. While there are no authenticated accounts of how this process was discovered, there are several interesting legends.
One popular legend is that a Native American chief hurled his tomahawk at a tree which happened to be a maple, and the sap began to flow. The clear liquid that dripped from the wound collected in a container on the ground below. His wife, believing the liquid was water, used it to cook venison.
Both the meat and the sweet liquid that remained were found to be delicious. Retracing what had happened, they discovered the sweet sap from the maple tree made the difference. The process was repeated and the rest is now history.
For a complete list of maple sugaring houses that will be participating in this annual event, click here…>
You can also visit the NH Maple Producers website to learn all about the production of maple syrup in NH.
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