Merry Millheim celebrates the Christmas season

MILLHEIM — The sixth annual Merry Millheim celebration featured music, crafts and other seasonal activities held in and around downtown.

On Dec. 2, a live Nativity scene was presented along Main Street, with actors in biblical period costumes and live animals recreating the first Christmas.

At 7 p.m. that evening, the Four Decades Quartet performed on stage at the Green Drake Art Gallery. This group of four local men specializes in barbershop-style harmony, and performed many sacred and secular Christmas favorites, delighting a crowd of about 50 people.

Returning for the third year was the Festival of Trees, held in the old Millheim Municipal Theater building. The festival featured six large Christmas trees set upon the stage that were decorated by the staff of the East Penns Valley Library. There also were 30 wreaths on display throughout the room, which were sponsored and decorated by local nonprofit groups, including fire companies, churches, charities and civic groups.

Visitors could bid on the wreaths via a silent auction, which served as a fundraiser for the groups. The trees, also available to be bid on, were donated by Tannenbaum Farms in Potter Township. The library was the designated recipient of funds raised by the Merry Millheim event this year.

Mark and Cyndy Engle own the theater, which opened to the public in March 1924. For more than 60 years was a focal point of Millheim activities, offering weekly movies, community plays, concerts and high school commencements, before closing in the 1980s. The Engles purchased the building in 1995.

Featured on stage with the trees was an antique one-horse open sleigh owned by the Engles. The sleigh was given to Mark Engle by his parents, Marilyn and Clair Engle. Marilyn Engle’s family had originally owned the sleigh, which dates back to the mid-19th century. It spent many years in storage in Montana, then was brought to Pennsylvania in the late 1990s, and was restored by a buggy shop in Mifflinburg. It now sports a glossy black-and-red paint scheme with gold pinstripes and red velvet upholstery.

As part of the Merry Millheim festivities, the Bremen Town Ballroom hosted its Handmade Holiday Market, featuring about 15 local artisans and vendors specializing in a variety of products. A large crowd of shoppers kept the vendors busy throughout the weekend. 

Merry Millheim actually extended beyond the town into neighboring Brush Valley, where a children’s story time was held Dec. 3 at Forefathers Book Store and the Main Street Yarn Shop in Rebersburg. Joyce Bierly, a retired school teacher, read “The Reindeer’s Wish” to several local children.