Just about dark, with the bonfire and voices still going strong, the Farm's wagon reappeared, this time filled with nearly 150 glowing luminarias. Minutes later the bonfire sprang to life along with rousing choruses of "Joy To The World" and other seasonal favorites. The Reverend Goodrow led the group in a brief prayer and then proclaimed the lighting of the Tree. Traditionally, townspeople purchase lights on the Memory Tree to commemorate departed family and friends. As soon as the parade had disappeared back down the Farm Road, throngs of observers moved onto The Green where the town fathers had set up a bonfire not far from the Woodstock Memory Tree. These riders were followed by brightly decorated sleighs and wagons and finally the Farm's remarkable Clydesdales driven 4 in hand. Single riders on Morgans, Appaloosas, Percherons, and mixed breeds hollered "Merry Christmas" and tossed candy to the children anxiously lining the curb. At the stroke of 2:00, barricades were erected to stop all traffic on Highway 4 as a dazzling array of horse-drawn carriages set out from the Billings Farm for two turns around The Green. By 1:30pm the sidewalks of Main Street were bursting with tourists and locals flowing out into the road.
Just before noon, Officer Obie (remember Officer Obie?) set out his traffic cones to prevent people from parking anywhere around The Green. All Saturday, stately homes ringing the Village opened their doors to the public for house tours and eggnog tastings. Nearly a foot of snow fell overnight blanketing the town and the hills around with a reminder that real winter weather is not far away and the tourists will be heading over to Killington, the major ski area just 10 miles to our west. On Friday night, the Woodstock Inn was host to the Medieval Court gala, a 7-course meal punctuated by a live performance from King Arthur and his court.
Shop windows are aglow with their holiday offerings and there is hardly a place to walk for the throngs of tourists who have made our town a must-see stop on their way through New England. The holiday season is off to a bang here in Woodstock with every store on Main Street decorated with candles and twinkling lights. They can be reached Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm (holidays excepted) at 802/457-4600. If there are questions or issues you have in the interim, please remember that the MISys Customer Service Department is standing by to offer you personalized service. With so much extraneous information appearing in our email inboxes every day, we hope this change will mean that the communications you receive from MISys will contain information that you can use to get more value from your investment in our software, or will help you do a better job selling and installing our software. New technology available to us will allow us to focus on separate segments of our reader base - sending information and updates to our MISys SBM users which most likely will be different from the information we send to our MISys SAE users, or our business partners. We want to be in touch with you whenever we have something important to tell you, not just because it is Tuesday once again.
After many years of publishing a regular MISys Update Newsletter, we are changing the format and schedule of the emails we send to our business partners and customers.