Beacon Hop & Shop
The focus for this fourth annual Beacon event, which takes place this year on Thursday (Dec. 2) and Friday (Dec. 3), is to entice residents to shop local for the holidays with festivities, sales and specials.
A retailer’s window on Main Street in Beacon decorated for a previous Hop & Shop (Photo by Grace Sakellariou)
The sponsorship spots sold out in 90 minutes after the dates were announced on Instagram, says Erin Murphy, who owns Reservoir, which moved this year from Beacon to Cold Spring. “Everyone was just so gung-ho,” she says.
Murphy founded the event in 2018 with Lauren Decker of King + Curated, which is a sponsor, along with Flora Good Times, Solstad House, Last Outpost, Sullivan & Main, The Blushery, Melzingah, The Leaf NY, Nourish Natural Soap Co. and Luxe Optique.
The money collected from sponsorships all goes to marketing, Murphy said. In years past, only businesses that paid could participate; this year, it is open to all, although sponsors will get more promotion. More than 50 retailers have signed up to participate and registration continues through Monday (Nov. 22).
Murphy is not printing maps this year, but details will be available for shoppers at hopandshopbeacon.com. Details about sales and specials will be posted at the site beginning Nov. 29.
Cold Spring Aglow
On Friday (Dec. 10), from 5 to 9 p.m., Cold Spring’s Main Street from the top of the hill to the waterfront will be lined with hundreds of glowing luminarias.
The holiday-decorated windows of Main Street shops will also provide light, with many businesses planning to stay open until 9 p.m.
Cold Spring Aglow in 2019
“Our hope is to bring a physical light to the village, as friends, neighbors and families come together,” says Murphy, who is co-organizing with Hannah Salit for the Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce, which created the event in 2018. The goal is to “make Aglow a mainstay in our village festivities.”
Adds Salit: “We are looking toward this 2021 winter gathering after missing much community assembly in 2020 [when the event was canceled because of the pandemic shutdown]. It’s about how can we move forward and create tradition again.”
For a donation of $20 or more, a luminaria kit may be ordered through coldspringnychamber.com with pickup on Dec. 3 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Reservoir, 101 Main St. Proceeds will benefit the Philipstown Food Pantry.
The luminarias can memorialize or honor a family member or friend or an organization, and tributes can appear on the Aglow website and in the Dec. 10 issue of The Current. Sponsors include the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Pidala Landscaping, Paulette Cold Spring, Reservoir, Old Souls and The Current.
The festivities will begin at dusk with a 15-minute performance coordinated by the Philipstown Depot Theatre in which 15 adults and five children adorned in “suggestions of Dickensian costumes” will sing holiday carols. The songs will be interspersed with performances of excerpts from A Christmas Carol by Greg Miller.
