Yes, you typically see “Top 10 Things”, but we thought we’d mix it up a bit and list 9. This leaves room for any suggestions to round out our list to 10. Is there something unique to Concord that you feel should make this list? If yes, please let us know in the space below!

The Crucolo Cheese Parade

This year the Concord Cheese Shop celebrated its 10th annual cheese parade. Every first Thursday of December for the last decade, the Concord Cheese Shop has put on The Crucolo Cheese Parade and all are invited to attend. This year it was celebrated with a single wheel of cheese weighing 1000 pounds produced in the village of Scurelle, Italy. The crowd was estimated to be around 2000 people and the cheese was pulled by a horse named Luke through the town center. He was escorted by a band and His Majesty’s 10th regiment of foot in colonial attire. Nice. Mark your calendar for next year!

Patriot’s Day Parade

Patriot’s Day 2020 is on Monday April 20th. It is the 245th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Each year thousands of people come to Concord and Lexington and Minute Man National Historical Park. It is a special Massachusetts State  holiday commemorating the opening battle of the American Revolutionary War, April 19, 1775. In Concord, the Patriot’s Day Parade goes forward rain, snow, or muck and covers a route of approximately 2.5 miles. Participants include Color Guards, Cultural and Youth Groups, Dignitaries, Minuteman Companies, and Musicians. Dignitaries are from neighboring towns, the State, the nation, and several foreign countries with ties to Concord. At the North Bridge there is a ceremony to commemorate the engagement between the Minuteman companies and British troops with a wreath laying  ceremony. The parade continues across the North Bridge and returns to Concord Center. 

Holiday Tree Lighting

Our Concord Recreation Department and new tourism director, Beth Williams, really lit it up this year. While historic Concord was being blanketed in snow, holiday carolers sang outside of churches, local stores handed out hot chocolate, hundreds of families walked in the parade, and Santa lit the tree. The best part about it.. The Holiday Tree Lighting happens every December. Mark your calendars for December 6th, 2020!

Walden Pond

This made the list because it’s such a beautiful place to have in Concord. Henry David Thoeau’s Walden has made it very well known. Today Walden Pond comprises the heart of the Walden Pond State Reservation and is designated a National Historic Landmark. Here in Concord it is a favorite place to walk, swim, and just hang out. We’re sure if the local dogs were to make a “Top 9 List”, Walden would be on it.

The Local Farms

Where should we begin? You can buy fresh produce and cook “farm to table” all year long just by supporting our local farms. They are all over Concord! Do you have a favorite?

Turkey Trot

Every Thanksgiving over 2000 runners participate in the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. It is a 5K run and a portion of the proceeds from this event benefits the Open Table Food Pantry and local youth running programs. Costumes and turkey hats are encouraged!

Concord Museum

The Concord Museum highlights Concord’s incredible revolutionary and literary history. It offers family and children programs throughout the air, as well as wonderful exhibits. The Concord Museum’s Garden Tour and Family Trees Celebration are two of their popular annual events. Definitely be sure to stop in if you’re in town for Patriots Day.

Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House

Little Women is a story for every generation and it all began here at Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House. Learn all about the Alcott’s when you visit the Orchard House. The house has been preserved to adhere to the highest standards of authenticity. The house was purchased by Amos Bronson Alcott in 1857 and is famous for where his daughter, Louisa May Alcott, wrote the novel Little Women.

Concord’s Colonial Inn Gingerbread Houses

Strategize, secure your materials, and get ready to enter the Concord Colonial Inn’s Gingerbread House competition for the 2020 holiday season. It’s a wonderful community event and all individuals, businesses, schools and organizations are invited to enter. These gingerbread houses will be placed throughout the Inn.

The Umbrella Stage Company is proud to be the first professional company to bring to local audiences this newest musical, magical adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s classic children tale, Tuck Everlasting, which also inspired a 2002 Disney film. 

Recently on Broadway, the show tells the story of 11-year-old Winnie Foster (played by Madi Shaer), who yearns for a adventure beyond her wrought iron fence in Tree Gap, New Hampshire in 1893. When she stumbles upon the Tuck family and their secret to everlasting youth, she faces the extraordinary choice of returning to her ordinary life or continue with the Tucks on their infinite journey. 

“For decades American schoolchildren studied the original novel and it is still taught to 4th and 5th graders today,” observes Elliot Norton Award-winning director Nancy Curran Willis. “Tuck Everlasting deals with some very adult concepts of time, loss, growing up, death, love, loyalty, and family. Yet, the musical takes the audience on a magical, mystical, memorable journey suitable for the entire family.” 

Tuck Everlasting was selected for the season, says Brian Boruta, The Umbrella Stage Co. Producing Artistic Director, to provide substantive “family entertainment…that’s not exactly holiday-themed, but a little outside the box.” Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and cosponsor of the production at The Umbrella, calls Babbitt’s story “the equal of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and perhaps even a couple of Emily Dickinson’s postcards from eternity.”

More About Nancy Curran Willis & The Umbrella Stage Company Willis has directed 7 shows for The Umbrella including the multi-award-winning Angels in America Parts I & II. With 30 years of directing experience, she has earned awards including the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction, ArtsImpulse, and many EMACT DASH Awards. The Umbrella Stage Company is part of the expansive Umbrella Arts Center (formerly Emerson Umbrella), a multifunction 501(c)3 nonprofit arts organization founded in 1983 in Concord, MA. Its expanded, six-show season will alternate between a 344-seat mainstage and flexible 100-seat blackbox – the first season to be staged in The Umbrella’s brand-new, state-of-the-art, multi-theater performing arts facilities at 40 Stow Street. Season, Flex Pass, Group and Individual tickets are available. Learn more at TheUmbrellaStage.org .

The Umbrella welcomes public, artists, and artisans to newly completed arts center for annual Winter Market

The Umbrella invites you to kick off the holiday season and support local artisans at its annual Winter Market this weekend, December 6-8, in the recently completed Umbrella Arts Center.

One weekend each year, The Umbrella transforms into a bustling marketplace with work from more than 75 creative vendors displaying everything from handmade ceramics, forged and beaded jewelry and blown glass to unique woven scarves, photography and art prints, ornaments and wood-turned treasures.

A cherished Concord tradition, the Market brings holiday shoppers together with The Umbrella’s skilled studio artists, faculty and students, joined by acclaimed guest artists from throughout Greater Boston. Get all your holiday shopping done in one, fun swoop by buying handmade holiday gifts directly from regional artists. You’ll have a great story to accompany the gift, and you’ll be supporting local artists in creating new work year round!

This year’s Market is the first to be held after completion of a multiyear renovation and construction project that has transformed the former Emerson School in the heart of Concord Center. Works by participating artists will be on display throughout the three-floor renovated space, and the annual “Off the Wall” small-works show in the freshly built new atrium Main Art Gallery will feature purchasable artworks smaller than 14″ x 14″ x 14″ and priced under $300, just the right size to be a gift for yourself or someone special. When you fall in love with one of these pieces you can buy it right off the wall! 

This year’s Market will also include live music, local food vendors, and a wider range of hands-on family friendly activities in The Umbrella’s new arts classrooms and Makerspace labs, as well as opportunities to visit new theater facilities where The Umbrella Stage Company, Greater Boston’s newest professional theater, will be presenting the musical, Tuck Everlasting. 

The Umbrella Winter Market is free, open to the public and full of good cheer – so bring a friend and #DiscoverYourArts! 

The Umbrella is easily accessible by Route 2’s Walden exit, 2 blocks from Fitchburg rail line stop, and offers free parking. 

For more information visit TheUmbrellaArts.org/winter-market

This year is the 25^th anniversary of the Concord Education Fund. The fund was started so that our students’ teachers could provide new or enhanced curriculum to our students. Over the past 25 years, the Ed Fund has played a pivotal role in getting the following programs off the ground.  Many of these programs have now become such an integral and regular part of our student’s curriculum that we are not aware they were initiated by the Ed Fund, with the support of parents and local organizations. The Ed Fund is an all-volunteer board; its administrative overhead is 5% of our budget, so nearly all donations go right back to the students.  Selected grants include:

• The Engineering Certificate Program for CCHS;
• Rivers and Revolution at CCHS ( if you ask parents whose children took this course, most will say it was a game-changing academic experience; other high schools now shadow the class to implement one in their high school;
• Q5 at CCHS;
• Percussion Instruments at CMS;
• The STEAM Lab at Ripley School, used by all the schools; 
• 3d Printers for the Middle School;
• African-American History and the Story of Concord for all schools; 

The list goes on and on. Go to our website where all our projects are listed, and some are explained in detail here: http://concordedfund.org/grant-highlights-archive/

Thank you for your past and future support. Most of our support comes directly from the parents; your money goes directly back to the students. The 25 year partnership between the Ed Fund and the teachers is a big reason why the Concord-Carlisle public schools are as great as they are. 

Our 25^th anniversary gala is Saturday, November 16. Laurie Hunter, the Superintendant will say a few words, and we will briefly update you on recent grants and initiatives.  Then we will celebrate with the 10-person band, Sugah Rush. Please come by purchasing tickets at http://concordedfund.org/25th-silver-anniversary-party/.

If you can’t come, but want to play a role in enhancing our students school experience, please donate. We would greatly appreciate it. 

Have you checked your email for all the news from your favorite organizations? Have you looked at each of their calendars? There is A Lot happening in our Concord-Carlisle community pretty much all the time.

The CCHS Parents Association is presenting another film that offers skills for stress resilience for kids, 42nd St is performing at The Umbrella, DropOff SwapOff is happening soon, The public library has the most incredible array of programs geared towards all different age groups, The Concord Museum has reopened!, youth basketball is starting up soon and so is wrestling, there’s a murder mystery dinner at Trail’s End this month, authors are visiting both the library and the Concord Bookshop, Discover West Concord Day is coming up, and just about EVERYONE is offering something cool for Halloween.

It’s hard to keep track so we keep track for you. All Concord-Carlisle organizations are welcome to post events here. We’re constantly updating our calendar and posting to our social media accounts. And yes, we also send out a weekly email that highlights all events for the coming week across many organizations. This email will include any event happening at the Cheese Shop, any speaker visiting for an organization, and many other events taking place that week. If you have any questions or suggestions please reach out to us any time! Go CC!