Holiday offerings at Bethel Historical

BETHEL — With the holiday season here, the Bethel Historical Society is once again offering – for a limited time – a 20 percent discount on all regularly priced items in its Museum Shop.

Starting on November 23 and continuing through the entire month of December, prices will be slashed on items inspired by the Society's museum and research library collections, as well as books, gifts, and special publications associated with past and current exhibits at the Society's Regional History Center.

As visitors will discover, many of the books currently in stock relate to the history of area towns, logging and lumbering, architecture, decorative arts, Native Americans, the White Mountains, railroads, the Civil War, art, and crafts.

Among the gift offerings are White Mountain note cards; DVDs and CDs; maps; postcards; cross-stitch kits (including a reproduction of an 1841 sampler in the Society's collection); children's activity books, old-fashioned folk toys and Roy-Toy log building sets; Sunday River covered bridge mouse pads, note cards, pins and magnets; boxed Maine mineral collections; folk art paintings, prints and silhouettes in the style of Rufus Porter; paintings by local artists and craft work by local artisans.

The special 20% discount applies to in-store sales as well as online purchases and is available to both members and non-members. (Regular member discount does not apply during this period only.)

The Museum Shop, located in the Robinson House, 10 Broad Street, is open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 824-2908 or 800-824-2910 or visit the Society’s website at www.bethelhistorical.org.

On Saturday, December 1, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., the Bethel Historical Society will present “Christmas at the Mason House.” Each year, the Society celebrates the holiday season by decorating the first floor period rooms in the 1813 Dr. Moses Mason House as they might have appeared just before the Civil War.

This is also the only time of the year when guests can view the mid-nineteenth century room settings by candlelight. Live music and seasonal refreshments will be featured during the two-hour open house, which is free to the public (donations welcomed).

At 5:30 p.m., Bethel Historical Society volunteers are invited to gather in the Mason House exhibit hall for refreshments and the annual presentation of the Marjorie MacArthur Noll Volunteer Service Award.