![]() ![]() Gingerbread, porches, paint, and rocking chairs. Look at that little detail on the screen! And the curtains! Someone loves this house. ![]() They’re all painted in the most imaginative ways, and they all have porches. I almost don’t know where to start! Every cottage in this little enclave is different, each is a little work of art, and some have been in the same family since they were built. Ready? We’re going to get there early and get a good parking space. It happens every year and I thought you’d like to see what it looks like. The evening begins with a community sing with the town band in the Tabernacle there are picnic dinners on the lawn at 9 pm, the street lights go out the cottages light up and everyone strolls round and round the Tabernacle and down the lanes to oooh and aah at the colors. These days the tradition is that on one summer night each year, the cottages are decked out with paper lanterns. Illumination Night began at about the same time the Tabernacle was built, when they began lighting up the Campground with candles and oil lamps. The little cottages are dripping with history (and gingerbread!). The Tabernacle (above) was constructed in the 1870’s, and is at the center of the Campground the cottages circle it, with narrow walkways and “roads” spoking off in all directions, just the right size for a horse and buggy, and most of them too narrow for cars. After a while, they started replacing the tents with tiny wooden cottages, built very close together, with almost no space between them. They brought their families and camped out for weeks, setting up tents in a field about a block from the sea. There’s a neighborhood in Oak Bluffs called The Campground where, in around 1840, Methodists began having “meetings” every summer. ♥ ( o ne of our favorite traditions is listening to this islander sing. One of the things I fell most in love with when I moved to Martha’s Vineyard and began to experience island life, is the way they hold dear and celebrate longtime traditions.
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