Adirondack Family Time™

Around the Adirondacks local stores and businesses aren’t feeling the pressure to celebrate early. They are saving their energy and pulling out all the stops for a Black Friday and Small Business Saturday weekend that is uniquely Adirondack.   These events give you enough time to let your turkey dinner settle down while festive enough to gesture in the Christmas spirit.  As you can see from the schedule at the end of the page, various towns stagger the events so you can attend one or all! Children will be able to make crafts to give as gifts, enjoy horse wagon rides or participate in free puppet shows, movies and treasure hunts. We always took advantage of those free activities to slip away and get a bit of our holiday shopping completed.  Speculator is hosting its Holiday stroll  on November 28 with gift certificates, give-aways and discounts topped off with Victorian carolers while Lake George plans on making the village glow with over 15,000 lights on November 29.   I

Fort Ticonderoga Winter Programs! Historic Trades Program: Leather Breeches Workshop"  January 7 and 8, 2012  This two day workshop will focus on construction details for leather breeches based on our collections own original leather breeches.    Material Matters: It's in the Details"  January 28 and 29, 2012 This weekend program focuses on the material culture of the 18th century and is intended for collectors, re-enactors, and people with a general interest in learning more about objects of the 18th century and what they can tell us about history.  "Fort Fever Series: Winter Landscape Snowshoe Trek" January 22, 2012 Explore the Fort Ticonderoga grounds as we identify trees based on their winter characteristics. "Fort Fever Series: The Roar of Musketry and Cracking of Rifles" February 12, 2012 An introduction to weapons of the 18th century with Curator of Collections, Christopher Fox. "Fort Fever Series: Native Ameri

One thing we always try to do around the holidays is to have the children attend one of the many arts and crafts events around the area. The goal is two-fold. The kids get to create something and then give it to someone as a Christmas gift. The weekend in Ticonderoga, the Ticonderoga Business Chamber is sponsoring its second annual North Country Christmas. The activities range from   Kids Holiday Craft Day at Glens Falls National Ban k to the ability to drop your small ones off to do some craft while you shop ($5) at All Bout Critters.

Seagle Colony presents "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" By Diane Chase Twenty-nine years and still going strong, the Ticonderoga Festival Guild continues to provide weekly children’s programming under the name Arts Trek. Each Wednesday morning at 10:15 a.m. Ticonderoga Arts Trek holds court at the Knights of Columbus Pavilion, behind the K of C Hall on Montcalm, for anywhere from 200 to 250 children. According to Executive Director Cathie Burdick the program name Arts Trek originated in the 80s and is an anagram of the then popular TV show Star Trek.

My children greet Stan Burdick, director of the Ticonderoga Cartoon Museum like he is the cable man and just offered free access to unlimited channels. They look at me like I am the only thing holding them back from nirvana. I brought them here. It is not the same thing as blankly sitting in front of a television though I stop short of telling them that. I shush them off making sure they carefully maneuver through the aisles. This museum is the result of Stan Burdick’s 50-year collection of cartoon memorabilia. A political cartoonist himself, Burdick contributed to many local newspapers during his career. His work has been selected numerous times for the annual publication, “Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year” and in 1996 he won the New York Press Association Award for his editorial cartoon of Eliot Spitzer. The museum houses over 700 pieces of original art from mainstream cartoonists like Chuck Jones’ Bugs Bunny, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, and Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury to the m

So it's not a real museum in the sense that you go inside but rather a living experience with adventures at every corner type of museum. This is the closing weekend of two weeks worth of events. For the price of a $10 button the Battle of Plattsburgh Society will have a host of events continuing through Sunday. If that isn't the museum of your choice New York Heritage Weekend will get you free admission to the Adirondack History Center Museum in Elizabethtown and Fort Ticonderoga this weekend as well as other museums all around New York State. Other children events in the area include Wilmington's Festival of Colors. This event is free! The event will take place from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. at the tee-ball field on Springfield Road. Thirty vendors will be on hand displaying everything from local produce to homemade toys. Performers from Santa's Workshop will kick off the show at 10:00 a.m., followed by local band "Organized Chaos", then at 1:00 p.m. "Pips