Silvester to bring in New Year
HARMONY — History and community will once again be celebrated with the ninth annual Silvester celebration.
The celebration, expected to draw several thousand people, will be Dec. 31 with family-friendly activities.
“Everything about it is fun and everything about it is German,” said John Ruch, Historic Harmony president. “It's become an attraction and now a tradition.”
A new addition to the event is a Christmas tree throwing contest.
“This is kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea,” Ruch said. “I thought we needed to have something new at Silvester.”
The afternoon's activities will include tours of the Harmony Museum; a showing of the short comedy film “Dinner for One” in English, popular on New Year's Eve in Germany; and the Bleigiessen, the German tradition of examining the shape of a bit of melted lead dropped into water to interpret what the New Year may hold.
“It's a wonderful time,” Mayor Cathy Rape said. “I love the idea, and I'm so glad people thought of it years ago.”
A pork and sauerkraut dinner will be at Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall from 2 to 5:45 p.m. New Year's Eve. No reservations are required.
A 5K run/walk and one-mile fun run also will take place. The 5K will start at 3:30 p.m. and the fun run will start at 4:15 p.m., with both starting and ending at the center of Harmony.
Free parking will be provided at the Grace Church of Harmony, and registration will take place in the Grace Church Youth Center, along with changing facilities and door prizes.
Awards for the 5K will be given to the top three finishers for males and females in a number of age categories.
All preregistered participants will receive a long-sleeve men's or women's technical shirt while they last. All registered finishers of the one-mile fun run will receive a medal.
More information on the races can be found on the borough's website at www.harmony-pa.us.
Music, beverages, snacks and year-end surprises at specialty shops throughout town will be available.
The Christmas tree throwing contest will involve contestants throwing trees measuring five to six feet long like a javelin.
The time and place of the contest has not been determined. Ruch said there is a possibility of contestants signing release forms before participating.
He also said a prize will be given for the longest throw.The day will conclude with the traditional ball drop and a fireworks celebration at 6 p.m., which is midnight in Germany.“I just looked around at the sea of heads and I thought 'Does this happen anywhere else in America?'” Rape said about the inaugural celebration. “It was just beautiful to see a crowd of people in the square just in awe about the fireworks.”While the Silvester celebration brings friends and family together to welcome in the new year, it also aims to educate people about the borough's historic German roots.The borough was founded in 1804 by pacifist German Lutheran Separatists fleeing militarism and religious intolerance of a state-church system in the Stuttgart area of what was then the Duchy of Württemberg in Germany.Their Harmony Society became one of 19th century America's most successful communal groups and moved on to establish New Harmony, Ind., and Economy that became Ambridge in Pennsylvania.Ruch said any opportunity to educate people on the borough's history is “a good opportunity.”He and Rape said the celebration's success can be attributed to decent weather and its early ending, giving people the opportunity to relax later or participate in other New Year's Eve celebrations.“You don't have to wait until it's so late at night and you can't enjoy it with your children,” Rape said. “It's like a small-scale New York City.”More information on the Silvester party can be found at www.harmonymuseum.org/Silvester.
