Final year of Christmas in Marion See this weekend's Heritage Days Schedule Twenty years. That is what the Crittenden County Homemakers are celebrating with this year's Christmas in Marion Arts and Crafts Show Saturday and Sunday at Fohs Hall.
While it is time for celebration, it is also bittersweet, because this is the last year the Homemakers will organize and sponsor the affair. At the end of this year's show, the Homemakers will pass the torch to the Community Arts Foundation. Along with the torch, the Homemakers will pass the very well organized manuals for a successful show, which outline duties of coordinators in various capacities from publicity to cookbook and candy sales.
“Homemak-ers kept making it bigger and better and due to the advancing age of many of our members, we knew it was time to pass it on to someone else since it brings 1,000 plus visitors from 15-plus states each year,” said Nancy Hunt, Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences in Crittenden County. “We have no trouble filling our 30-plus both spaces, and if someone cancels, we have someone on the waiting list ready to take it.”
Hunt's daughter Kim is president-elect of the Community Arts Foundation and will coordinate the 2008 show which will occur the third weekend in October as always.
As constant as the fall ritual of Christmas in Marion has been the participation of crafter Linda Wooley.
Wooley's booth has displayed a plethora of handmade crafts over the two decades – everything from teacher gifts and key chains to wooden potato boxes and framed prints.
She began showcasing her handiwork at the first Christmas in Marion, but her artistic roots run deeper than the Fohs Hall Auditorium in which crafters set up shop.
In the early 1980s, she and others worked with Farm Bureau to establish a Crittenden County craft display at the Kentucky State Fair. With direction from the Art Guild in Marion and particularly Doris Lemon, Wooley and Diana Herrin and others learned how to display Crittenden County crafts at the fair, as well as the etiquette involved with greeting booth visitors.
Armed with those skills, Wooley and her husband Doug, a local contractor, have become well known crafters at Christmas in Marion.
The popularity of Wooley's crafts are as much a tradition as the two-day craft fair itself. Wooley, who operates The Stitchery out of her Marion home, will bring a few new items this year including patriotic painted rock paper weights and gift boxes containing stuffed animals.
"I hope to add some denim purses this year, they seem really popular, and I'll bring whatever I've got from my inventory that might hit someone's fancy," Wooley explained.
The origin of her craft ideas? A lot of her inspiration has been from the Internet and other craft shows.
Christmas In Marion hours are 9 a.m., to 5 p.m., Saturday and 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., Sunday.