'A Sparkling Holiday' is planned at Osborne Homestead Museum in Derby

DERBY - Celebrate the holidays at the Osborne Homestead Museum and learn about the legends and origins of gemstones. 

Each room will be brilliantly decorated to the theme “A Sparkling Holiday.” 

The holiday tours will run from Nov. 25 through Dec. 17. Tours will be offered Thursdays through Sundays from 10 a.m.-4  p.m. 

On Fridays, December 2, 9, and 16, the museum will present “Twilight Tours” to show off the shimmering glow of the decorations from 4-7 p.m.

For more than 30 years, volunteers have created the gorgeous holiday decorations at the museum. 

These talented and committed volunteers are members of the Derby Garden Society, Garden Club of Orange, Long Hill Garden Club, Naugatuck Garden Club, Olde Ripton Garden Club of Shelton, Oxford Garden Club, Pomperaug Valley Garden Club of Woodbury, Roxbury/Bridgewater Garden Club, Women Redefining Retirement Milford, and Ye Olde Kellogg Garden Club.

Visitors will also get a chance to support local farms and small businesses at the Connecticut Holiday Market in the Kellogg Environmental Center located behind the museum. The Holiday Market will be held Dec. 2 from 4-7 p.m. and Dec. 3 from 9 a.m.-noon. 

Choose from a wide variety of products, such as Connecticut Grown produce, meat products, beauty and bath products, teas, and much more.

The Osborne Homestead Museum celebrates the life of Frances Osborne Kellogg, the award winning dairy farmer who bred the legendary Holstein bull Ivanhoe. 

In the early to mid–1900s, she and her husband Waldo Kellogg made Osbornedale Farm second to none in New England with their record-breaking, prize-winning Holstein-Friesian cattle. 

Frances held many high ranking positions in several dairy associations, including President of the American Holstein Friesian Association and Director of the New Haven County Farm Bureau. She also left an endowment to the University of Connecticut which established the Kellogg Dairy Center in Storrs. 

Her cow pastures and farm, which she deeded to the State of Connecticut, are now Osbornedale State Park and the Kellogg Estate in Derby.

Make it a “jewel” of a holiday and visit the Osborne Homestead Museum. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted. 

The Kellogg Environmental Center and Osborne Homestead Museum are located at 500 Hawthorne Ave. 

To register for group tours and for more information, call (203) 734-2513 or email donna.kingston@ct.gov.

This is a press release from DEEP.