Wequassett creates 'Enchanted Winter': Cookies, Mrs. Claus -- something new every weekend

To celebrate the first year of Wequassett Resort and Golf Club in Harwich being open for the winter holidays, the resort is recreating the feeling of the North Pole for overnight guests and those who live on Cape Cod.

Festivities open with holiday shopping with Cape merchants at a day-long "Merry Market" with food trucks on Dec. 2; decorating 120 trees while lighting the biggest one, and afterwards, providing free viewing spots to watch The Harwich Chamber of Commerce fireworks being set off over Pleasant Bay on Saturday, Dec. 2.

The chamber usually coordinates fireworks during the fall Cranberry Festival, but the threat of bad weather from hurricanes cancelled them this year. Chamber officials got permission to reschedule for Dec. 2, painting the sky over Pleasant Bay, where Wequassett Resort and Golf Club is located.

"We are so excited to have this collaboration with Wequassett because it will do so much for the community," said Cyndi Williams, the chamber's executive director.

Food Network's Carla Hall hosts 4,000-cookie baking contest

At 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, the first "Cape Cod Holiday Baking Classic" will feature a holiday cookie contest with 40 bakers bringing 4,000 cookies.

Food Network celebrity chef Carla Hall (formerly of “The Chew”) hosts while a panel of judges chooses the best holiday cookie.

And who could forget the Clauses, Mr. and Mrs., who are settling in at a small building at Wequassett decorated for the holidays as Mrs. Claus’ Workshop? There is a pajama brunch with Mrs. Claus, breakfast with Santa, gingerbread house making, most priced to include one adult and one child starting at $65.

“I love all the activities at this time of the year so it’s really fun to be celebrating here on the Cape,” said Alton Chun, regional managing director for Wequassett Resort and Golf Club.

Harwich and the chamber were already planning the annual Christmas in Harwich Festival Dec. 1-3, Chun said, “so we were talking with them about what we could do that would fit in with that and reach people in all seven villages of Harwich.”

While the chamber stages a parade at noon Sunday, from Harwich Elementary School, Wequassett will host the cookie exchange starting at 11 a.m. Tickets range from $20 (for 12 and younger with four cookies) to $100 covering two dozen cookies to take home.)

Forty professional and amateur bakers have been chosen to bake cookies and the winner will get a grand prize, an online baking class from Hall at a future date and will have the winning cookie featured in Wequassett’s coffee shop, The Sill.

Sharing proceeds with Outer Cape Health

Chun said Wequassett wanted the special programming to benefit organizations used by people who live on Cape Cod, including the resort’s staffers. Outer Cape Health Services — with offices in Harwich Port, Wellfleet and Provincetown — and Boston-based Community Servings will split proceeds from the first weekend, Chun said. A portion of proceeds from the following weekend, “Broadway on the Bay,” is going only to the Cape medical facility, Chun said.

At 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 at Wequassett’s grand pavilion, Broadway stars John Riddle (the last phantom in the 35-year run of “Phantom of the Opera”) and Alysha Umphress (“On The Town,” “American Idiot”) sing holiday songs. Pianist Dan Micciche, conductor of the hit Broadway musical “Wicked,” provides accompaniment. Tickets are $50 each or $100 for seats in the first three rows with a meet-and-greet.

There are a dozen other activities in what Chun calls Wequassett’s inaugural “Enchanted Winter,” including cookie decorating with Sarah Arnold, who has appeared on Food Network’s “Holiday Wars.”

But an activity expected to be so popular that it is scheduled three times – at 2:30 p.m. Dec.15, Dec. 22 and Dec. 29 -- is the “Afternoon SwifTeas,” at $65 per person. If you can’t get a concert ticket to see Taylor Swift, this sweet tea and treats afternoon promises to let you pretend to be Swift for an afternoon.

“Play dress up with the finest Taylor accessories from pink boas and tiaras, from our SwifTea Wardrobe,” the Wequassett website says, “snap a picture using your Polaroid camera at your table, and swap friendship bracelets.”

Gwenn Friss is the editor of CapeWeek and covers entertainment, restaurants and the arts. Contact her at gfriss@capecodonline.com. Follow her or X, formerly Twitter: @dailyrecipeCCT

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Holiday events on Cape: Wequassett has trees, cookies and Clauses