Shoppers Show Up for Winterfest
-The following first appeared in Floyd Times on December 9, 2025
A few inches of snow that fell the day before Winterfest – December 6 and 7 – didn’t stop shoppers from participating in the Floyd Center for the Arts holiday shopping tradition. With roads plowed, general parking areas at the Center scraped and salted and temperatures well above freezing, attendees flowed in and out over the two-day event.
Winterfest is one of the Center’s biggest yearly fundraisers and the longest running one, turning 31 this year. It’s also one of the Center’s best attended events.
“The Living Traditions Festival this year became our biggest turnout, but Winterfest was our biggest before that,” said FCA executive director Keela Dooley Marshal. She explained that The Living Traditions Festival received a lot of grant funding but that Winterfest is supported by the community.
The addition of the Festival of Trees Silent Auciton in 2013 has been a patron favorite and is a boon to the Center’s fundraising and community involvement. Businesses have stepped up to elaborately decorate table trees and stock them full of donated gifts and gift certificates.
Marshal reported the Center has about 25 – 30 volunteers, including board members, who are available all year long and were called on to prepare and to staff Winterfest, a free to the public event.
“It was really busy this morning. People showed up before 10. We had a morning rush hour,” she said, adding that according to their attendance clickers they were on par with last year’s attendance, although the snow may have been responsible for the event’s food truck owners cancelling their scheduled commitment.
Over 40 vendors included return artists and artisans, but there were also first time Winterfest vendors represented.
Hillsville Potter Bonnie Undseth, who had only been making pottery for a couple of years, drew a crowd in her studio room.
First time Winterfest vendor Adaline of Mama Menh’s Handmade Jewelry and Gifts said she sells her wares at the Floyd Farmers Market, “but it’s getting cold now,” she commented.
Shaun Webber of County Line Carvings staffed his booth with his two young sons, Oakley and Silas. When asked if they were interested in carrying on the family trade, Webber said, “They’re starting to be interested. They’ve started picking up tools.”
Rebecca Terrill was demonstrating wheel spinning. Her booth was a group fundraising effort to raise money for a new loom for the FCA’s Loom Barn, where weaving classes are taught.
Knitter Suzanne Piovano was selling her finished knitted creations as a fundraiser for The Humane Society.
Santa Claus made the rounds on Saturday and posed for pictures with attendees. Mason Lewis, a young hunter who was with his mother, asked Santa if he was a hunter and what he hunted. “Turkeys,” Santa answered.
Late Sunday, Marshall reported that 1,400 people – up from last year – attended the weekend event and that the Festival of Trees and Wreaths earned $5,645 to benefit the Center. “I would say that the majority vendors said they had great sales this year. People came to shop!” she said.
Vendor Dustin Marshall of Marshall’s Wildlife Control sold animal hides. His decorated tree at the Festival of Trees,which was topped with a coonskin cap, won the People’s Choice of 2025. – Colleen Redman
