West County Museum inherits The Legacy's Holiday Store
Vintage ornaments and other holiday items will be available for purchase at the West County Museum from Dec. 5 to Dec. 8
A longtime Sebastopol tradition—the Legacy’s Holiday Store—is changing hands. The Legacy, a hobby and craft store owned by the Sebastopol Area Senior Center, has gifted its Holiday Store to the West County Museum. This year, the store, which in the past has been operated as a pop-up in vacant storefronts, will be hosted at the museum in the town’s historic train depot on Main Street.
Museum Director Donna Pittman, who has been a big fan of The Legacy’s Holiday Store over the years, is excited to take on this beloved tradition, and she has big plans for it.
Scheduled to open the day after the Christmas Tree Lighting in the downtown square, the museum’s holiday store will be open for just four days this coming week—from Friday, Dec. 5 to Monday, Dec. 8. The store will be set up both inside the museum and outside on its capacious stone veranda.
Pittman envisions it as a kind of fun, neighborly, four-day Christmas party, with all the Legacy’s traditional vintage Christmas goods for sale.
“For four days, there’ll be food there and hot chocolate and hot cider, and Christmas music, and we’re going to be all lit up, including the boxcar,” she said, with her usual infectious enthusiasm.
There will be the tall Christmas trees that the Legacy Holiday Store was famous for, filled with vintage ornaments. The Luther Burbank Experiment Farm, which, like the museum, is run by the Western Sonoma County Historical Society, will be selling Christmas wreaths, handmade by its volunteers.
In addition, Pittman said, “There will be small Charlie Brown Christmas trees for sale, and the boxcar is going to be totally decorated with wreaths and a great big train mural so families can have their pictures taken.”
Two museum volunteers, who formerly sang with the San Francisco Opera, will be on hand on Sunday, singing carols, and rumor has it that Father Christmas will pay a visit as well.
Senior Center Director Katie Davis said she was happy to find a new home for its holiday store.
“It was a lot of additional work for the staff and volunteers during the holiday time, which is already so busy,” Davis said.
For years, the Holiday Store was the domain of Senior Center super-volunteer Nick Vanucci, who died in 2022. “We stopped the holiday store for almost three years, and then brought it back last year for the first time. Because it really has been such a wonderful tradition for the Senior Center and The Legacy all these years, we didn’t want to just say goodbye to it completely,” Davis said.
Davis said she reached out to several local organizations to see if they wanted to take it on. “The Historical Society approached us, and we started working with them, and it just seemed like a really wonderful cause to support,” she said.
Legacy volunteers, veterans of previous years’ holiday stores, have been helping the museum get ready to launch the store. They’re providing advice and pricing items.
The museum’s current photo exhibit, Uncovering the Past, will stay up while the Holiday Store is open so shoppers can peruse those as well.
“I’m leaving the exhibit up so that, while people are here shopping, they can get a little look at what we try to do, which is to tell the story of the town.”
If anyone can light up anything, it's Donna Pittman! She's the best! This sounds like a fun and worthy opportunity to support our community. See you there!
I’ve seen the elves at work, sorting and pricing the donated holiday treasures! I hope a lot of people stop by to find fun holiday items while also supporting the history museum!