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Thank you for support of Noble Horizons Auxiliary
Thank you to all the community members who supported the Noble Horizons Auxiliary Holiday Market on December 5 and 6, 2025.The Holiday Market is the Auxiliary’s major fundraiser and the proceeds go directly to funding programs and enhancing the lives of the residents at Noble Horizons.Flowers on the dining room tables, holiday gifts for the residents, pet therapy, an excursion fund and other worthwhile programs would not be possible except for the generosity of our community.
Thank you to those brave souls who ventured outside in Friday’s frigid weather.Inside, the holiday spirit was warm and festive. Saturday shopping was brisk and the community support displayed was heartwarming.Shoppers were treated to free cider and donuts as well as door prizes.In addition to the traditional holiday market booths, numerous outside vendors offered an eclectic mix of gift items, jewelry, and home décor.And of course, the appearance of Mrs. Claus and her story time activities gladdened the young at heart.
As chairperson of the Holiday Market, I am overwhelmed and a mere thank you seems inadequate. But thank you again and have a blessed New Year!
Marcia Ramunni
Salisbury
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125 years ago — December 1900
Chicken thieves have been at work. They recently visited Mrs. Pratt’s hennery and took nearly all of her fowls. It is supposed to be the same parties who raided her chicken house last year. A good dose of buckshot would be appropriate medicine for the thief.
The Cutlery Handle Co. is doing an increasing business. A larger force is now employed than for a long time past.
A singular and fortunate accident occurred on the Harlem Monday evening to the milk train; eight cars loaded with milk were tumbled into the stream at Tanner’s Bridge near Wassaic. Engine passed over bridge safely and caboose was not derailed. — No one was hurt. The wreckage has made transferring at that point necessary until Wed. when trains are again running through.
On Wednesday afternoon while Mrs. Mary Knight and Mrs. Robert Knight were going down stairs, in some manner they both fell. Mrs. Mary Knight was underneath and suffered a dislocation of the right shoulder and some severe bruises about the face. Mrs. Robert Knight escaped unhurt except for the shock of falling. The many friends of our elderly and much respected townswomen will be gratified to learn that she is now as comfortable as possible and trust that no serious results will follow the accident.
Beats the Dickens about that South African war don’t it.
We may not have seen the wireless telegraphy but we have frequently seen matchless safes and horseless chestnuts.
100 years ago — December 1925
Miss Elizabeth Warner of Gilbert School, Winsted, is spending the vacation with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Warner.
George Belcher Jr. has entered the employ of the Oxy-Crystine Corp.
The children of the white school trimmed Christmas trees, and gave them to the older residents of the village.
The young people have been rehearsing Christmas carols, which they will sing to all the sick, shut-ins and old people on Christmas eve. This is a custom established several years ago.
Mr. E.C. Mercer, the prominent lay evangelist, is home to spend a few days with his family and to get a short rest, after a very busy season. He expects to resume his work after January 1st. During his work which has embraced the entire country, Mr. Mercer has addressed more than five million people.
Mrs. Mary Dunn is at Wm. Tellerday’s on Brinton Hill.
John Stanton has taken a position at the local Western Union office to study telegraphy.
The sharp change in the weather on Tuesday night gave things a more wintry and Christmassy aspect and incidentally made a little bigger hole in the precious coal pile. The cold snap also froze over what is known as the muck hole and provided skating for the youngsters.
The Lakeville Journal wishes all its readers and friends a very merry Christmas with lots of joy, turkey, fixings, ‘n everything.
50 years ago — December 1975
Making up for lost time, Storm Dan insured good skiing and a white Christmas by clobbering the Tri-State area with more than 12 inches of snow over the weekend. Kids, sportsmen and resort operators were delighted. More cold was predicted.
The proposal to open the Falls Village landfill area to Salisbury and Sharon died Friday night. First Selectman David Domeier said that a preliminay study undertaken by Eugene Wright had proved the idea to be unfeasible. Domeier said that Wright’s figures showed that at least 60 per cent of the MacMillan farm (purchased two years ago by the town for its own landfill needs) is classified as wetlands. This would not leave enough land to support an additional landfill operation on the farm.
A turnaround for large vehicles has been constructed at the end of Dublin Road, to facilitate access to that road. The narrow width of the road has made it difficult for town trucks to plow the road, and school buses have been making their last stop about six tenths of a mile from the dead end.
25 years ago — December 2000
SHARON — Area residents vehemently objected to a proposed Sprint PCS telecommunications tower at a public hearing of the Planning and Zoning Commission held Dec. 13 at Town Hall. Zoning specialist Thomas Flynn, an employee of the Florida-based tower building firm SBA, attended the hearing to share what he considered glad tidings with commissioners and members of the public. A red trial balloon was flown by SBA on the weekend of Nov. 30 at the proposed site on Route 7 and, said Mr. Flynn, “the good news is that it was less visible than even I had anticipated.”
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
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Friday was the end of the final full week of trading for the year. The next two holiday-shortened weeks will top off a good year for stocks. Will Santa show up for the finale?
The much-vaunted Santa Claus Rally is supposed to begin this coming week and carry us through to the New Year. Does it really matter? For the most part, if you had stayed invested through 2025’s ups and downs, you should be pretty happy now. Especially so if you had followed my advice and bought some precious metals and mining stocks.
Of course, I won’t turn my nose up at an extra percent or two into January if Mr. Claus does visit. Now that the president has made the day before and after Christmas a federal holiday, the normally skeleton staffs and anemic volume of this period will be that much lower. That means traders can push stocks up and down to suit their whims while booking additional profits from day trading chasers.
As you know, I did not join the Wall Street crowd predicting what the markets would do this year. It is, in my opinion, a useless exercise that strategists rarely, if ever, get right. The average forecast was for a 7-10% gain, and we doubled that.
I will be writing about the coming year in time, but let’s stick with what is happening so far in December for right now. There has been a deluge of economic data this week. It feels like a tsunami after weeks of a data desert during the government shutdown. The non-farm payroll report for November rose by 64,000 after falling by 105,000 in October. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021.
The payroll report is signaling that the labor market is weakening. The Fed would call it “normalizing.” Retail sales were okay if you subtract out autos and gasoline. Both the services and manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Indexes were still in the 51.8% and 52.9% ranges, signaling expansion.
However, it is hard to take these numbers at face value because the shutdown had certainly jiggled the data, missed some crucial inputs, and may be subject to partisan doctoring. No surprise, given that the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s head was fired by the president and the BLS still lacks a suitable replacement. Remember to subtract 60,000 jobs from every job report; that is the number of jobs the Fed believes are overstated in any given month. So the real number was a gain of 4,000 jobs.
On Thursday and Friday, we also received our first inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index for November rose 2.7%, less than most expected (present company excluded). Readers may recall I have been predicting weaker inflation numbers and expect more of the same when the December CPI is announced next month.
The president’s mid-week speech to the nation was largely ignored by the markets. Rather than paying down the deficit with the tariff money he is collecting from consumers and corporations, President Trump is using some of it to reward those he needs in the upcoming mid-term elections.
In this era of expanding state capitalism, the president followed up last week’s $12 billion bailout fund for farmers with $2.5 billion in “warrior dividend” paychecks to 1.45 million military service members. His list of beneficiaries of tariff money seems to be getting longer. In addition to paying off the farmers and now, the military, he has proposed redirecting tariff money to voter dividend checks, tax cuts, paying down the national debt, enhanced childcare benefits, a possible end to the income tax, and a victory fund for Ukraine.
I warned investors to expect volatility in December, and thus far, I have been correct. There were exceptions. While AI and tech were getting slaughtered, cannabis stocks had some eye-popping gains. Thanks to another executive order: this time to ease marijuana classifications. Back in September 2023, my column “Rescheduling cannabis could boost profits for U.S. marijuana companies” discussed how rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 3 designation could boost grass sellers’ bottom line from 20 to 30 percent per annum.
But do not confuse a reclassification with making marijuana legal under federal law. It is also completely different from the SAFE Banking Act, which would allow banks to provide financial services to the industry.
During the Biden presidency, the on-again, off-again prospects of rescheduling left industry stocks for dead, with short sellers having established huge positions.
Bill Schmick is a founding partner of Onota Partners, Inc., in the Berkshires.Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own and do not necessarily represent the views of Onota Partners, Inc. (OPI).
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