Friends of Old Town

New Year's Eve Celebration in Old Town Winchester
2025-12-31 18:00 - 23:59 (America/New_York) | Loudoun Street Pedestrian Mall
Join us in historic Old Town Winchester for a day of celebration culminating with a spectacular and FREE New Year’s Eve Neon Nights & Laser Light Show at the Old Courthouse Civil War Museum, street performers along the walking mall and the traditional Apple Drop at midnight on Wednesday, December 31, 2025, from 6:00 pm to midnight. Downtown merchants will be open for dining, shopping and live entertainment. Parking in Old Town is FREE on New Year’s Eve through New Year’s Day.

YDC Winterfest
2025-12-31 07:30 - 18:00, 2025-12-30 07:30 - 18:00, 2025-12-29 07:30 - 18:00, 2025-12-26 07:30 - 18:00, 2025-12-23 07:30 - 18:00, 2025-12-22 18:00 - 2026-01-02 17:00, 2025-12-22 07:30 - 18:00 | Youth Development Center, 302 S Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Need something magical for your kids during winter break? Join us Dec. 22–Jan. 2 for YDC Winterfest! Full days of games, crafts, music, and fun for all school-aged children.
Activities are inclusive & adaptable for kids of all abilities.

YDC Esports Open House
2025-12-19 18:30 - 19:30 | Youth Development Center, 302 S Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
The YDC is leveling up with our brand-new Esports Program and you’re invited to preview it!
Join us for an exciting preview of the YDC’s upcoming Esports Program. Families, students, and community members are invited to stop by, explore our new gaming space, and meet the people helping bring this program to life.
Representatives from Shenandoah University’s nationally recognized Esports program, members of the YDC Board of Directors, and our YDC team will be on hand to answer questions, demonstrate equipment, and share what competitive gaming can offer students of all interests and skill levels.
This open house is designed to introduce the community to the educational, social, and team-building benefits of Esports while giving attendees a chance to see the space, talk with experts, and learn how to get involved when the program officially launches in the new year.
Registration is free.

Year in Review: Reflecting on Old Town's Growth
2025-12-17 15:00 - 16:00 | Winchester Brew Works
We love hearing from our amazing Old Town community!
That’s why Friends of Old Town is hosting monthly outreach and input sessions all year long. These laid-back, open-forum meetups are a great chance to share ideas, chat about what’s happening in Old Town, and help shape our future together.
Each session focuses on a fun, guided topic to keep things lively and productive.

Wrapping And Wine
2025-12-14 16:00 - 17:00 | The Market at Kimberly’s, 123 N Braddock St, Winchester, VA, 22601, United States
Learn how to wrap like a pro from Kimberly’s Christmas elves! Bring your own reasonably sized gift in a box, or come shop for your gift in any of our stores & we will box it for you!

"The Nutcracker" ballet
2025-12-14 14:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-13 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-12-13 14:00 - 16:00 | John Handley High School, Patsy Cline Theatre, 425 Handley Boulevard, Winchester, VA, 22601
Vostrikov’s Academy of Ballet’s presents the 44th annual performance of The Nutcracker, a Winchester holiday tradition since 1982. This full-length production features more than 150 dancers in two acts with one intermission. We are excited to welcome professional guest artist Kfir Danieli as Cavalier for all shows. This beloved classic is perfect for audiences of all ages, offering a mesmerizing experience that will create cherished memories for the entire family.

A Very Merry Tea
2025-12-13 16:00 - 17:00 | The Market at Kimberly’s, 123 N Braddock St, Winchester, VA, 22601, United States
Join us at The Market At Kimberly’s for A very merry Christmastime themed tea.
Included with your ticket:
Bottomless Tea
Cucumber Sandwiches
Chicken Salad on Crackers
Cinnamon Rolls and Cookies
Champagne & Wine, $6/glass.
Tickets: $25 for adults/ $15 for children

Santa's Express Cookie Crawl
2025-12-13 12:00 - 17:00 | Loudoun Street Pedestrian Mall
Hop aboard the sweetest stroll in Old Town! On Saturday, December 13, our shops turn into cookie stations — each with a festive treat waiting just for you.
Wander the bricks, collect cookies (while they last!), and enjoy a little holiday magic at every stop.
All Cookie Crawl boxes will be picked up at Blue Collar Mercantile — our official Friends of Old Town event sponsor. Swing by to grab your box, map, and first treat before heading out across the mall.
Participating Stops:Moon Phased • Thinker Toys • Fair Isles Trading Co. • Winchester Book Gallery • Polka Dot Pot • Espresso Bar • Murphy Beverage Co. • Nibblins • Handworks Gallery • Winchester Brew Works • Kimberly’s • Back to the Media • Manolete’s • Knead Bread
Saturday, December 13 12–5 PM (while supplies last!)
No tickets, no rush — just cookies, cozy vibes, and a chance to support the local spots that make Old Town shine. And don’t forget to end your crawl at the caboose on Kent Street — Santa will be there waiting to say hello!

YDC Winterfest Open House
2025-12-08 18:00 - 19:00 | Youth Development Center, 302 S Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Join us for an informative open house about our upcoming Wintefest program! Our program leader, Gracie, and program coordinator, Lindsay, will be onsite to provide information and answer any questions!
Winterfest offers full-day programming from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM and is open to children aged 6-12. Activities are carefully designed to be inclusive and adaptable for participants with disabilities, ensuring that every child feels welcome and supported.
This year’s Winterfest will feature two themes:
Week 1: Santa’s Workshop (Dec. 22–26, closed Dec. 24–25) – Campers will explore the joy of giving through creative projects, holiday crafts, and teamwork-focused games.
Week 2: Winter Wonderland (Dec. 29–Jan. 2, closed Jan. 1) – A celebration of the season, this week encourages imagination, outdoor adventure, and community building.
Light refreshments and food provided.

Author Event: Alicia Lewis - The Longest Day
2025-12-07 12:00 - 14:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Falsely accused of stealing archaeological data, 15-year-old Ellen is threatened into silence by a teacher. Ellen confronts the buried secrets of an ancient Egyptian tomb and their own lives. A story of courage, justice, and secrets unearthed. Come meet local author Alicia Lewis and get your copy of her latest novella.

Autor Event: Blake Lynch - Hanging the Angels
2025-12-06 14:00 - 16:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Following over 50 magazine publications and e-book releases, Hanging the Angels is Blake Lynch’s first full-length, traditionally published poetry collection-a fierce, intimate, and often darkly funny reckoning with cancer, memory, loss, manhood, and the salvations of fatherhood and family.
Structured around the imagined body of a wooden angel, these poems form a road map through a landscape of hospitals, highways, motel rooms, and ghost towns. From the steel bones of Pittsburgh to the haunted air of New Orleans, from broken family lines to the fragile joy of raising a daughter, Hanging the Angels pulses with hard-won grace and lyric intensity. Drawing from the confessional tradition, Appalachian storytelling, and Rust Belt elegy, Lynch writes with a voice that is both mythic and deeply personal.
These are poems that confess, cuss, and break your heart in the same breath. They drive dark roads, sing survival into silence, find beauty in ash and sky, and whisper what the living do after the storm has passed. The result is an elegy rebuilt in light-an act of memory, defiance, and love.
Tributes include lost friends and mentors, a motorcycle-riding cancer survivor who never made it home, a daughter who gives the speaker reason to stay, and figures like Evelyn Grace and Andy Kaufman. Many poems originally appeared in 2River, Commonline Journal, Dunes Review, King Log, Levitate Magazine, Lines + Stars, PulpMAG, Poplorish, In the Teeth of the Wind, and Turk’s Head Review.
For readers of Philip Levine, Sharon Olds, Jack Gilbert, or Larry Levis, Hanging the Angels is a testament to survival, and a reminder that some voices shine brightest after the fire.
Come join the Winchester Book Gallery in welcoming author Blake Lynch!

Author Event: Sharon Krasny - Shroud of Ice
2025-12-06 11:00 - 13:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Based on the real life of Ötzi the Iceman, murdered over 5,000 years ago, Shroud of Ice searches for answers to the haunting echoes of will we ever be enough. Gaspare in the role of Ötzi is a call to stand one last time against the darkness because not all who are dead are silent. Come meet the author and get your signed copy.

Author Event: Beth Macy - Paper Girl
2025-12-05 17:00 - 19:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet New York Times’ Bestselling author Beth Macy! She’ll be here at the Book Gallery signing copies of her newest publication: Paper Girl.
Preorder now in person, over the phone, or online to guarantee yours!

First Wednesday Community Information Night
2025-12-03 17:30 - 19:00 | Bridging the Gaps, 31 S. Braddock Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Addiction is a struggle — for the person and their loved ones. That’s why at Bridging the Gaps, we’re offering 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, a 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜.
This October, attendees will be able to receive Acudetox (ear acupuncture), a technique used in addiction recovery to help reduce cravings, manage stress and anxiety, ease insomnia, and support healing.
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭:
▪️Receive Acudetox treatment from our nurse trained as a NADA Acudetox Specialist
▪️Q&A with our clinicians and admissions team
▪️Practical tools and resources for recovery
▪️Connections to local support and community resources
▪️Light refreshments provided
𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝:
💜 Individuals struggling with addiction
💜 Family & friends supporting someone in addiction or recovery
💜 Community members interested in learning more

Godfrey Miller Center Fall Concert Series: Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders
2025-11-30 16:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-30 08:00 - 17:00 | Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 26 West Boscawen Street, Winchester, VA, 22601, United States
Join us on Sunday, November 30 at 4pm! Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance or cash at the door. All are welcome! Concert benefits the mission and ministry of Godfrey Miller Center.
Award-winning singer/songwriter Andrew McKnight’s music traverses influences from Appalachia, tasteful slide and jazzy blues, feisty anthems, rustic folk, and guitar-driven rock. Featuring founding Nitty Gritty Dirt Band member Les Thompson, Les’ wife Stephanie Thompson, and Lisa Taylor, Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders blends his charming tenor voice and acoustic and electric guitars with banjo, upright bass, drums, and percussion. The band has delighted concert and festival audiences since their collective debut at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington (March 2008) as well as on their acclaimed 2012 CD/DVD set One Virginia Night.
Valuing the artistry of taut arrangements over flashy instrumental jams, they have earned acclaim for their exquisite 3- and 4-part vocal harmonies as well as the unusual and constantly changing combinations of instruments. Their eclectic arrangements of Andrew’s award-winning songs fuse oldtime influences, roots rock sounds, rich vocal harmonies, and an assimilation of many stylistic elements that truly stretch “beyond Appalachian, beyond blues, beyond folk”.

Plaid Friday 2025
2025-11-28 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
“Plaid Friday” is the idea of weaving individual threads of small businesses together to create a strong fabric! Today, we celebrate independent businesses while wearing our favorite leisure wear: plaid!
Come shop at the Winchester Book Gallery this Friday!

Author Event: Erika Santiago - You Are Not Alone
2025-11-22 14:00 - 16:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Life has a way of breaking us open. For many women, motherhood, loss, and heavy seasons of survival can leave us feeling unseen, unheard, and disconnected from who we once were. You Are Not Alone is a reflection journal created to help women begin again-to process pain, honor grief, and gently rediscover their voice and worth.
This book is not a quick-fix workbook or another empty self-help promise. It is a companion, designed to walk beside you in the quiet, difficult, and tender places of your story. Within its pages you will find a space where honesty is welcome, where your emotions are valid, and where healing can unfold in your own time.
Through a blend of storytelling, reflection prompts, affirmations, and journaling space, this book invites you to:
-Explore the impact of loss, grief, and motherhood’s demands with compassion rather than judgment.
-Release old narratives and begin reclaiming the parts of yourself buried beneath exhaustion, fear, or survival.
-Reconnect with your inner strength through affirmations that remind you of your worth, resilience, and capacity to grow.
-Create a personal record of healing-one that reflects not only your pain but also your becoming.
Some pages will guide you with questions and reflections. Others will hold space for you to write without expectation. Together, they form a journal that feels less like homework and more like a safe landing place-a reminder you are not defined by your hardest moments.
This journal is especially for:
-Mothers carrying the invisible weight of caregiving and identity loss.
-Women grieving the death of a loved one or the loss of who they used to be.
-Anyone navigating a heavy season who needs encouragement to keep going.
You Are Not Alone is more than a journal-it is a sanctuary. It is for the woman who has given so much of herself that she feels there is nothing left. It is for the mother who wonders if she will ever find herself again. It is for the daughter, sister, or friend who carries silent grief and longs for a place to set it down.
Whether you are writing through tears, anger, exhaustion, or hope, these pages remind you:
-You are not alone in this journey.
-Your healing matters.
-You are still becoming, and becoming takes time.
This book belongs on the bedside table of every woman reclaiming her life after loss, pain, or the relentless demands of motherhood. With space to breathe, prompts to guide reflection, and words to remind you of your strength, it offers what so many crave in hard seasons: a companion that listens, encourages, and stays.
You Are Not Alone is not just something to read-it is something to experience. Page by page, it will walk with you as you grieve, heal, and rise.

Wine tasting at Murphy Beverage Company
2025-11-21 17:00 - 19:00 | Murphy Beverage Company, 167 N Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Come join us for a free wine tasting where Lisa of LK Wines will pour four wines that would be perfect for your Thanksgiving table – and beyond.

Community Connections: Strengthening Old Town Together
2025-11-19 15:00 - 16:00 | Winchester Brew Works

Author Event: Jimmy Proffitt - Seasoned in Appalachia
2025-11-08 14:00 - 16:00 | Winchester Book Gallery, 7 North Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Inspired by home-cooked family meals, Seasoned in Appalachia delivers authentic, flavorful dishes paired with charming anecdotes about family traditions and the magic of the Appalachian region. Author and IACP member Jimmy Proffitt, who grew up and learned to cook at an early age in the Shenandoah Valley, presents an authoritative collection of Appalachian cooking featuring heartwarming recipes for 75 delicious dishes.

Cheesin' for a Reason - a grilled cheese & tomato soup extravaganza
2025-11-08 11:00 - 17:00 | Winchester Walking Mall, Loudoun Street, Winchester, V, 22601, United States
Our 1st Annual Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Extravaganza for Winchester! 🧀🍅 WATTS will be “Cheesin’ for a Reason” this fall and we hope you’ll come out and join us in honor of one of our guests’ favorite meals.
Your ticket includes tastings/samplings of this classic, comfort food combo (with some flair!) from 15+ restaurants downtown, voting for your favorites, live music throughout the day, kids activities, shopping and vendors (just 6 weeks before Christmas!), and more, all while taking in a crisp, fall day along the entire length of the downtown walking mall. Scavenger hunt, commemorative event t-shirts/merch for sale, and a 50/50 raffle too – this event has all the fixin’s to make for a memorable and mouth-watering day. Help us raise funds for a great cause to make a huge impact for our friends & neighbors who are experiencing homelessness ♥
A fun day to make an incredible impact – this is ooey-gooey goodness you WON’T want to miss! Get your tickets TODAY!
NOTES:
*Ticketed entry times – 11am, 1pm, and 3pm
*No tickets will be sold at the event – must be purchased in advance
*Check-in will be on Rouss Avenue – address for GPS: 15 N. Cameron Street, Winchester VA 22601
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**BEWARE OF SCAMMERS**
Always be wary of anyone offering to “sell” their tickets online or on social media: there are NO physical tickets for this event. Only those ticketholders whose names we have via purchasing their tickets through our event site will be admitted to the event.
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*SPONSORSHIPS AVAILABLE!*
Advertise your business or organization at our event while supporting a great cause! Sponsorships can be purchased at our event website or by reaching out to WATTS directly.
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*VENDOR SPOTS AVAILABLE!*
$50.00 fee. Crafts, trinkets, gifts, hand-made items, etc. – NOT for food vendors/trucks. Location will be central along the walking mall in a grassy area. 10 x 10 spots, no electric, bring your own table, chairs, tent, etc.**ONLY purchase vendor spots from our event site or by contacting WATTS directly; beware vendor scams**
