We say it’s the little things that matter during the holiday season: cookies for a friend, a meal with a neighbor, an extra bit of sparkle. But this year, Brattleboro takes the expression literally with its Festival of Miniatures — an event that’s shaping up to be huge.
The first-ever fest, which runs through December, started out as a simple idea to bring more people downtown by adding dollhouses and miniature scenes to holiday shop windows, according to festival producer Nancy Vitale. But Melany Kahn, the force behind the event and the daughter of acclaimed painters Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn, is so thoroughly connected to the local arts community that once she started asking people to participate, the scale snowballed.
In addition to mini scenes in 84 shop windows — including tiny versions of actual stores — visitors can take in a fairy garden workshop and a flash fiction contest at Brooks Memorial Library, a gingerbread barn and mini cookie contest at Retreat Farm, Sandglass Theater’s performance of Fritzi’s Flea Circus, and a “Museum of Things Tiny and Found” at Latchis Gallery. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center hosts a Mad Hatter Tea Party complete with kindergarten chairs and tables, demitasse tea service, and model trains. There’s even a New England Youth Theatre production of Little Women.
At the heart of the festival is the “Painted Lady” Victorian-style dollhouse, on view in the front window of Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts. A team of volunteers has been working since summer to refurbish the stately micro home. To furnish it, Kahn solicited contributions of miniatures from more than 100 notable area artists. The house will be auctioned off, with proceeds to support the festival organizer, Downtown Brattleboro Alliance.
Furnishings include hand-blown glass chandeliers by Marta and Josh Bernbaum, a table by Bruce Berg, woven rugs by Steven Rose and Sara Coffey, tiny baskets by Ezra Distler, and pottery by Natalie Blake. Lily Lyons contributed stained-glass windows; Robert DuGrenier made glass lightning rods for the roof. There are tiny versions of Stephen Procter’s normally giant urns on the porch.
The walls are decorated with photos by Rachel Portesi, Elena Lyakir and Cathy Cone. Louisa Conrad made a tiny drawing of a goat; Diedre Scherer supplied a woven painting and Keira Zagaeski, itsy-bitsy origami cranes. And there is a plethora of tiny framed paintings by the likes of Eric Aho, John Loggia, Michael Abrams, and, of course, Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn.
The Victorian, as well as the other dollhouses the volunteers have been working on, viewable elsewhere downtown, are just chock-full of intriguing tiny objects. “Mouseton Abbey,” where crocheted mice explore their class differences in fancy dress, has a teeny mousetrap with a little cat for bait. A glass greenhouse, donated by New Jersey’s Sunflower Glass Studio, grows elegant wee orchids. Melany Kahn’s own childhood dollhouse, on display for inspiration in the volunteers’ dollhouse-renovation workshop, even has its own Ouija board. On a tour, Vitale reacted with delight whenever she saw something new, at one point exclaiming, “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t see the dentures!”
Downtown visitors looking closely will no doubt feel similar joy in discovering these small wonders.
Brattleboro Festival of Miniatures runs through December 31. brattleboro.com/miniboro
This article appears in Dec 3-9 2025.
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