It may have become an extinct 19th-century tradition to English villagers who used to celebrate the dawning of Christmas by splashing trees with cider while firing guns or beating pots and pans, but wassailing is alive and well in this tiny 21st-century New England town in which the impending festive season takes on an air of pageantry and tradition.  Ready for the Yuletide, Woodstockers are gearing up for the costumes and carolers, horses and riders, sleighs, and wagons that comes with the Annual Woodstock Wassail celebration that takes place this year on the weekend of December 10, 11, and 12th.

“I’m really excited for it,” said Beth Finlayson, Director of the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce.  “I think it’s the signature event of Woodstock.  It involves the whole community.  I love the day, and I look forward to having a lot of people in a town that will be bright and cheery.”

With streets decorated with white lights and Currier & Ives costumes and 19th-century Victorian seasonal attire, spectators this year can relish in wagon and sleigh rides around Billings Farm and Museum, a Wassail parade, a meet and greet with Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus, the reading of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” historic Christmas music at the Town Hall, a Wassail feast hosted by the Woodstock Inn and Resort, a holiday craft fair, a theatrical performance of a 20th-century New England holiday vaudeville put on by the Woodstock Union High School Yoh Theatre, and the lighting of the traditional Yule Log, Memory Tree and carol sing on the town’s Green.