Harmony holiday market brings winter festivities
HARMONY -- Singing, dancing, clapping, stomping, laughter and holiday cheer weren’t hard to come by over the weekend at the many tents and booths of the Harmony WeihnachtsMarkt.
The annual German Christmas Market event ran from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. It brings thousands of visitors into Harmony from across the region to enjoy food, drink, German cultural activities, music, craft vendors and a celebratory small-town atmosphere.
“It looks like a good crowd out there, and the weather hasn’t kept them away,” said Rodney Gasch, president of Historic Harmony Inc, adding that the cold made the event a little more festive. “You want people to get in the holiday spirit, and they get kind of excited about it. It’s hard to feel like you should do Christmas shopping when it’s 70 degrees.”
Gwen Lutz, vice president of Historic Harmony Inc., said the event brings together between 3,500 and 5,000 people each year depending on the weather.
“We get a mix — we get locals, and we get people from out around,” Lutz said. “There are times when we have gotten people from Ohio and New York, because they like to go to the Christmas markets.”
Visitors are interested in a variety of components of the festival, Lutz said.
“We get a mix of people who are coming for the vendors,” she said. “We have people who come for the entertainment, we have people who come for the food. It’s a real mix. It’s good for the whole community. A lot of the shops and so forth look forward to this every year, because we pull a pretty good crowd in.”
For residents of Harmony, the event can be a holiday staple.
“(I go) every year. I’m a Harmonite — we all come together,” said Bob Foster of Harmony, adding that he was already looking forward to the Harmony New Year’s Eve event at the end of the year. “This is great.”
Visitors of all ages from outside the town enjoy the event as well, said Nicole Hammers of Cranberry Township. Hammers brought her three-year-old son, Otto, into one of the tents to see the Alpen Schuhplattler Dancers, and the two got to dance in a circle onstage with the performers.
“This just seemed like a fun thing to do to get out and enjoy the cold weather,” she said. “This has been great. He came for the horse ride, rode the shuttle, the bus was a highlight and the Santa Claus over there — it’s like everything a kid could want.”
Former residents of the town come back annually to check out the festival, too. Jeff Finch of Pine Township, Allegheny County, described attending the festival as “kind of like a habit.”
“I lived here in Harmony for a long time, so we like to come down just to see what’s here,” Finch said.
“I think it’s special because of the artisan craftsmanship,” said Marguerite Finch of Pine Township. “It’s a market, and it reflects what they do in Germany, so there’s a piece of it that’s cultural, but we also have an opportunity to look at work that people have created.”
