How to Celebrate the Holidays on a Budget

Here are ten ways to have fun and spread holiday cheer in Woodstock without breaking the bank.

  This year’s holiday season can be special for you and your family regardless of your budget. Here are some fun tips for creating new holiday traditions while saving money. 1)    Make your cards from recycled materials. Cards can be made from paper grocery bags, cereal boxes, used file folders and even last year’s holiday cards. Feature your family’s artwork and use recycled wrapping paper or paper from catalogs and magazines for backgrounds. A great resource for making cards from recycled materials is "Creative Correspondence" by Michael and Judy Jacobs, available at FoxTale Book Shoppe or on Amazon.com.  2)    Have fun together and create a festive decoration by making a gingerbread house. You can bake the gingerbread yourself and use …

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Enter Patch's “Deck the House” Contest For a Chance to Win $100,000

Did you decorate your house for the holidays this year? Enter our "Deck the House" contest and you could win $100,000 for your local school district and $500 to pay your electric bills!

  We’re launching our annual Deck the House Contest to find the most over-the-top holiday decorations in America—the best “decked” house in the country—the one home so spectacularly decorated that everyone in town jokes your holiday decorations could rival Rockefeller Center’s. If this sounds like your house, upload a photo or video of your home to our contest page from Nov. 26 to Dec. 16 to http://deckthehouse.patch.com/contest/woodstock.  Only residents of Patch towns are eligible to enter. We’ll select 24 regional finalists, and from them, pick one grand prize winner. Patch will pay up to $500 of the utility bill for each finalist, while our national winner will have $100,000 donated to his or her local school district. Our contest is …

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Happy Holidays

Stay Home for the Holidays

With holiday travel looking a little less realistic, here are some great options for Woodstock residents considering a "staycation."

Whether it's close encounters of the TSA kind or the nationwide belt tightening  over the past couple of years, the holiday vacation scene is very different than it used to be. Even before the hot topic of full body scanners and privacy rights came into focus, stricter safety regulations in general meant longer lines at the security check point. Meanwhile, flight costs in general were certainly not lowering, regardless of the economic stress of passengers.  "You got to have the money to fly," said Jenny Fitts of Marietta. "And it's getting more expensive without as many benefits. It would be nice if I could afford to go see my family for the holidays more often. Or more often anytime, for that matter. " Fitts's family lives mostly in …

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Chords from the Coffeehouse

Local Musicians Put on Christmas Folk Show

Woodstock Coffeehouse hosted several folk musicians on Saturday in a Christmas celebration.

 Woodstock Coffeehouse hosted what turned into a lively Christmas party on Saturday night, featuring local musicians Colorado, Caleb Fox, Jonathan Peyton & Anna Woods, and Brim & Company. The music was an entertaining blend of folk rock, indie and acoustic folk styles and included instruments such as banjos and a tambourine.  Jonathan Peyton, employee of Woodstock Coffeehouse and REI, said he loves playing at the coffeehouse. "I chose Woodstock Coffeehouse because it's like home to me. It's where I played my first concert. I feel like playing a concert there is in some ways a family gathering," he said. His band mate and girlfriend, Anna Woods, agrees. "It's such a comfortable environment," she said. "It's packed, but that adds…

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