Twelve places to find holiday cheer

With walls painted crimson, gold, and black, this intimate new restaurant — it seats 20 — conjures La Belle Époque in Paris. Gypsy Apple Bistro, however, is in Shelburne Falls and is becoming a destination for diners looking to touch glasses and toast a transcendant dinner — venison with purple potato and mushroom hash in port wine reduction ($25), or scallops Provençal on angel hair pasta ($22), or baked manicotti with roasted eggplant and smoked mozzarella ($20). Such offerings from a recent menu blend flavors from classical-French cuisine, Wescott’s Caribbean heritage, and the Italian-Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn where he grew up. Wescott, who owns the bistro with his wife, Ami Aubin, changes the fare at least monthly. (Aubin’s Franco-American grandmother called pomegranates ‘‘gypsy apples,’’ hence the bistro’s name.) Wescott is still contemplating the holiday menu: cassoulet with a cider-brined pork chop? Braised short rib on mushroom polenta? Bouillabaisse? ‘‘It’s not final yet,’’ he says, ‘‘but it will scream ‘Let’s settle in and be warm.’ ’’

65 Bridge St., 413-625-6345, entrees $20–$25.

Take one acre in the middle of Taunton, put up a 30-foot Christmas tree, build a house for kids to visit Santa, and string 42,408 lights on trees, archways, and assorted decorations. If that doesn’t fire up the holiday spirit, nothing will. Taunton has been known as ‘‘The Christmas City’’ since 1914 when the Taunton Green was first decorated as a way of attracting shoppers downtown, making the event one of the oldest public lightings in the state. It attracts tens of thousands every year, and is popular with families, as parents can walk or wheel little ones through the green’s glitz and glow serenaded by piped-in carols. The theme for 2007 s Home for the Holidays with the holiday tree sitting atop a 12-foot-tall box painted with Taunton landmarks and homes. And, of course, lined with lights that make this Christmas display so bright, you almost have to wear shades.

Taunton Green in located in the middle of downtown at the convergence of routes 140, 138 and 44, about 4 miles from Route 24 in Raynham.

After a day of holiday shopping in Freeport, Maine, the Broad Arrow Tavern at the Harraseeket Inn is a great place to relax by a crackling fire and savor the warm, cheery spirit that animates this place. Outside, the tavern is festooned with lights. Inside, there’s a lively, casual atmosphere and exceptional cuisine. Children can enjoy a buffalo burger or organic pizza baked in a wood-burning oven, while adults sample the award-winning lobster stew or turn-spit roasted pork. The ingredients are as fresh and organic as possible, supplied by about 30 local farms, says Chip Gray, managing owner. Even the ice cream is homemade. The tavern’s decor conjures Maine’s piney woods. Dark green walls are adorned with hunting and fishing paraphernalia from a sporting camp the Grays once owned, along with hanging strands of little white lights in empty colored shotgun shells. Those who want their holiday cheer deepened by the glow of social responsibility will be pleased to find that the inn composts all its garbage and donates used frying fats to local organic gardeners to heat their greenhouses in winter.

162 Main St., 207-865-9377, 800-342-6423, harraseeketinn.com, lunch entrees $10-$25, dinner $11-$26.

We don’t need to go anywhere for a holiday getaway, we have one in our hometown. Thick with Colonial-era architecture, Newburyport is straight out of a Dickens novel. Add a glistening 60-foot Douglas fir at the foot of State Street, wrap every surface and storefront in garland and red ribbon, fill the streets with shoppers and the sky with 17th-century church spires, and you’ve got your own little chapter of ‘‘A Christmas Carol’’ 45 minutes north of Boston. Each year, two ‘‘Invitation Nights’’ are set aside where merchants do a little something extra to make shoppers feel festive: a few extra candles for decoration, or free cookies and hot cocoa at the entrance. Other days there are house tours, concerts, sing-alongs, and, of course, Santa will be stopping by.

Invitation Nights Dec. 7 and 14, 6 to 9 p.m. Holiday Sing Along, Dec. 15, 11 a.m., at the Firehouse Center for the Arts, 978-463-7336, firehouse.org.

Holiday House Tour, Dec. 8, 978-462-8681, CustomHouseMaritimeMuseum.org.

For a full schedule of holiday events go to NewburyportChamber.org.

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s masterful recreation of a 15th-century Venetian-style palazzo is a therapeutic retreat during the holidays. The sun-drenched courtyard is brimming with holly, red twig dogwood, and red and white poinsettias. On Dec. 20, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will host a Solstice Soirée 5 to 7 p.m., featuring jazz in the courtyard and a discussion with video artist Cliff Evans. Wander over to the Gardner Café, which will be open late. Then do some last-minute holiday shopping at the gift shop. Small in scale, the store exudes the elegance you come to expect from Boston’s foremost patron of the arts. Many of the products come from Gardner’s beloved Italy, like Venetian glass, forming brightly colored earrings, bracelets, and perfume bottles, Florentine paper, and body lotions from Rome. Also on display are delicate silk scarves, staring at $100, and Japanese porcelain vases for $45.

280 The Fenway, 617-566-1401, gardnermuseum.org

The Dream Away Lodge is hard to describe. It’s a hideaway, on a private parcel of land in the Berkshires’ October Mountain State Forest. It’s a restaurant, with live music, including the Wednesday evening hootenanny that’s been running for decades. It’s also an institution, begun in the 1940s by ‘‘Mamma’’ Maria Frasca, and frequented by everybody from local carpenters to Liberace and Joan Baez. Daniel Osman took over in 1997, keeping up many of Frasca’s traditions, including the collection of ceramic elves that comes out for the holidays. ‘‘A lot of things she collected I’ve started collecting — and I’ve always had a thing for elves,’’ he says. Christmas Day dinner begins at 3, then segues into a concert of world music. The New Year’s Eve party starts with dinner from 8-10 p.m., then live music and dancing until 1 a.m.

1342 County Road, Becket, 413-623-8725, dreamawaylodge.com, four-course prix fixe dinner $32, bar menu from $3-$15. Christmas dinner is $50 a person, New Year’s Eve is $65 a person or $120 a couple.

When the weather turns cold and the sun begins to set at the unreasonable hour of 4 o’clock, a gal can be excused for getting a little crabby. To boost my spirits and get into a holiday frame of mind I love to head to Provincetown and see the Pilgrim Monument all lit up like a holiday tree. Well, they don’t call it a tree but it looks like one, or perhaps a glittering skirt for a very tall maiden. The official reason for stringing white bulbs from the apex to the bottom of this 252-foot tower is to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first landing in America at Provincetown on Nov. 21, 1620. Whatever. It’s cheerful and offbeat, like the rest of Provincetown, whose small, eclectic shops are gaily decorated for the holidays. The summer crowds are gone and it’s nice to bundle up and smell the salt air mixed with smoke from wood-burning stoves and shop in a place that isn’t a mall.

High Pole Hill Road, 508-487-1310, pilgrim-monument.org.

Experience a country holiday at The Rocks in Bethlehem, N.H. Harvest a tree, make an ornament, and listen to the bells jingle on a team of horses pulling a wagon along rows of Christmas trees. Owned by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the 1,400-acre estate is the group’s conservation and education center. In December, carolers sing around the warming glow of the marshmallow pit’s fire and local crafts are sold in the barn. Throughout the year, The Rocks holds nature programs for families. Stroll, ski, or snowshoe on self-guided trails leading to the candy-cane-like character Stumpy Village.

The Rocks, 4 Christmas Lane, Bethlehem, 603-444-6228, therocks.org.

t’s hard to feel glum inside a snow globe, and that’s how it feels to be in downtown Stowe, Vt., over the holidays. Snuggled beside Mount Mansfield, the village is cozy to the core, a vision of white steeples. The snowy streets are chock-a-block with well-heated shops, and everyone’s glad to see you. At the Stowe Craft Gallery, there are plenty of artsy knickknacks to choose from. Across the street Stowe Mercantile is stocked with winter comforts, from woolens to earthy soaps. All shops are run by locals — and there’s not a mall in sight. Outside, the air is clean and fresh, the decorations old-fashioned. You can savor the silence at Bear Pond Books, or stop for a frothy cocoa at Jamie’s on Main, a tiny cafe and ‘‘cakery’’ with steamed-up windows. The mere scent of Michelle Hines’s chocolate-decorated confections is enough to warm your spirits, even when it snows.

Stowe Craft Gallery, 55 Mountain Road, 802-253-4693, 877-ILOVEVT (456-8388), stowecraft.com.

Stowe Mercantile, Depot Building, Main Street, 802-253-4554, 866-454-3482, stowemercantile.com.

Bear Pond Books, Depot Building, 802-253-8236,bearpondpookstowe.com.

Jamie’s on Main, Depot Building, 802-253-0077.

A number of places across the country have the same evocative name, but only the small community of Bethlehem in the Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut calls itself ‘‘The Christmas Town.’’ It began in 1938 when postmaster Earl Johnson designed a cancellation stamp or cachet with the image of a star-topped Christmas tree and the inscription ‘‘From the Little Town of Bethlehem Christmas Greetings’’ and used it to cancel mail during the holidays.The idea caught on and every Christmas since then Bethlehem has had both a new cachet designed by a local resident and more people wanting to use it. In the six weeks before Christmas the Post Office processes some 175,000 pieces of mail. To facilitate mailing, tables are set up in the lobby with cachet stamps available for all 69 designs, including a snowman, ornaments, snow flakes, town scenes, and a menorah. Cards and letters with correct postage can also be mailed in an envelope to: Postmaster, Bethlehem, CT 0675. Unless a particular design is requested, they will be canceled with this year’s postmark.

Bethlehem Post Office, 34 East St., 203-266-7910. Use of Christmas cachet stamps is free. Bethlehem Christmas Town Festival Dec. 7-8.A number of places across the country have the same evocative name, but only the small community of Bethlehem in the Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut calls itself ‘‘The Christmas Town.’’ It began in 1938 when postmaster Earl Johnson designed a cancellation stamp or cachet with the image of a star-topped Christmas tree and the inscription ‘‘From the Little Town of Bethlehem Christmas Greetings’’ and used it to cancel mail during the holidays.The idea caught on and every Christmas since then Bethlehem has had both a new cachet designed by a local resident and more people wanting to use it. In the six weeks before Christmas the Post Office processes some 175,000 pieces of mail. To facilitate mailing, tables are set up in the lobby with cachet stamps available for all 69 designs, including a snowman, ornaments, snow flakes, town scenes, and a menorah. Cards and letters with correct postage can also be mailed in an envelope to: Postmaster, Bethlehem, CT 0675. Unless a particular design is requested, they will be canceled with this year’s postmark.

Bethlehem Post Office, 34 East St., 203-266-7910. Use of Christmas cachet stamps is free. Bethlehem Christmas Town Festival Dec. 7-8.

In the Norman Rockwell world, Christmas is a big deal, and nowhere in the artist’s hometown of Stockbridge is it a bigger deal than at the Red Lion Inn. The Thanksgiving dishes are barely cleared before the decorating begins with setting up the gumdrop sculptures. Figurines of carolers cover the mantelpiece, and the inn keeps a log fire roaring throughout the day and evening, making the padded lobby chairs as coveted as summer’s front-porch rockers. Often with the aid of guests, staff members deck a bushy spruce in the front parlor with rocking horses, angels, and Santas. A pianist or harpist supplies the live music throughout the season — except when a troupe of carolers performs. Out front, the porch of the former stagecoach inn is lined with another half-dozen trees festooned with big-bulb colored lights. No wimpy white twinklers here. This is an old-fashioned Christmas, after all.

30 Main St., 413-298-5545, redlioninn.com, doubles $89-$260.

Santa can avoid mall madness by filling that sleigh with imaginative gifts from nonprofit art centers’ holiday galleries. In Connecticut, wise men and women know where to find original work by hundreds of national and regional artists in November and December. In New Haven’s Audubon Arts District, the Creative Arts Workshop’s 39th annual Celebration of American Crafts brightens the two-level Hilles Gallery with blown glass, pottery, fish wall art, ornaments, furniture, jewelry, mirrors, and lots of kids’ items. Among eye-catching creations are Sideways & Askew’s clay-and-paper sculptural lighting and Hilary Gifford’s multi-fabric scarves.
About 14 miles east of New Haven, the Guilford Art Center moved its 29th annual event from its campus to a spacious building in town. At Artistry on the Green, jewelry covers a variety of styles and prices while a ‘‘wall of pottery’’ shows off functional and nonfunctional designs. The handsome Fairhaven Furniture does double duty as display spaces. There are ornaments, glass, men’s ties, wearables, toys, and paintings.
Billing the 32d Holiday Exhibition & Sale as the region’s largest, Brookfield Craft Center dazzles with glass, ornaments, pottery, jewelry, handwovens, and home accessories. We loved Adam Spector’s pottery, Jean Meinhardt’s porcelain bowls, and Kim Korringa’s playful polymer clay jewelry.

Holiday Exhibition & Sale through Dec. 31 at Brookfield Craft Center, Route 25, Brookfield Center, 203-775-4526, brookfieldcraftcenter.org.

Artistry on the Green through Dec. 31 at former Trailblazer Building, 102 Broad St., north side of Town Green, Guilford, 203-453-5947, handcraftcenter.org.

Celebration of American Crafts through Dec. 24 at Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon St., New Haven, 203-562-4927, creativeartsworkshop.org.