Any Good Thing, the Cromwell Historical Society's Christmas Open House took place on December 10 and 11.  The Society invited its members and friends to celebrate the special foodstuffs of the Christmas season.  From the savoury to the sweet, the trendy to the traditional, these smells and tastes are as familiar and as dear as childhood.  First, the exterior of the 19th-century Stevens-Frisbie House received an 18th-century makeover as Rich Donohue ornamented his evergreen swags with fruit & spices in true colonial revival fashion.  In accordance with the first of five years of Civil War commemoration, the Front Parlour found Juleps & Viragoes busily packing a box of goodies for the boys at the home front.  The Cromwell High School chapter of the National Art Honor Society and the Cromwell High School History club presented the history of fragrant gingerbread in the Music Room.  The sparkle of Christmas candy dazzled the Ranney Library, thanks to Lois Donohue.  The Friends of the Belden Library ensured that Christmas’s hardest workers are healthy with their display of reindeer food in the Back Sitting Room.  A foray into the Sun Porch Gift Shop yielded exquisite Christmas ornaments made from vintage silverware by the CHS Crafters as well as a delctable bake sale!  April Walsh expertly brought the entire theme to a delicious climax in the Dining Room.  Upstairs, the Delany family demonstrated different ways of using food as Christmas decoration in Harry’s Bedroom.  And in the Colonial Room, Terra Burgoyne celebrated the international renown of the Christmas cookie. 

            If the way to the heart is through the stomach, Christmas was definetly  found in Cromwell this year!