Currently in the Commons…
The Commons is the part of Misselthwaite that belongs to the wider community. It’s a space for collaborative civic projects, joyful gatherings—and borrowing a cup of sugar. Here we recognize that small acts of care can go a long way toward making our daily lives a little more connected and a little more lovely.
Check out what’s currently happening in the Commons below.
One Person’s Trash…
A little village infrastructure for giving useful things another life.
One person's leftover fabric is another person's coffee cozy. One family's nearly-forgotten Christmas village is another generation's newly beloved tradition. One business's emptied shipping pallet is another neighbor’s I-Spent-A-Small-Fortune-On-Whimsical-Cat-Toys-But-Sure-Let’s-Play-With-The-Ugly-Shipping-Materials-I-Forgot-To-Put-Out-Last-Trash-Day-I-Guess…🙄
One Person’s Trash is the network of collection points we’re growing around Erie where villagers can drop off materials they no longer need, but suspect someone else might use. The Commons will draw from those materials throughout the year to support projects, workshops, gatherings, and community programming—from Warmth-to-Go to whatever comes next.
You don't have to know what it will become. You just have to believe it still has something left to give.
A small project about putting a little more warmth and kindness into circulation.
Warmth-to-Go is a seasonal program that helps folks convert materials they have lying around into an unexpected moment of warmth in someone’s day. Neighbors create simple reusable coffee cozies, intentionally designed to be made from things we already have: fabric scraps, leftover batting, mismatched buttons, and other items that might otherwise sit unused or be discarded.
The idea is deliberately simple: kindness doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth passing along. You can make one with what you have, put a coffee in it, and give someone a little Warmth-to-Go—your mail carrier, your plumber, your neighbor, a coworker. Whoever happens to cross your path. The point isn’t creating the perfect artisanal object; it’s getting something warm and kind moving through the community.
Ways to Get Involved
Don’t know how to sew? No sweat—neither did we! Throughout the season, Misselthwaite Commons hosts pop-up Warmth-to-Go gatherings where we teach neighbors the basic sewing skills they need to complete a cozy. Sign up for our newsletter below if you’d like to join our next class!
Have stray buttons or cozy scrap fabric to donate? The Commons partners with local businesses to coordinate One Person’s Trash drop-off locations. Reach out below to find out where you can give your unused materials a second life in the village.
Après Moi presents:
Inherited Recollections ❄
Some Christmas decorations are more than decor.
Maybe there’s a little house that came from your grandmother’s village, a church your parents put out every year, or one particular building you remember seeing on the mantel every Christmas morning of your childhood. Maybe you inherited an entire village—or maybe you only have one little building left.
Inherited Recollections is an invitation to tell us its story.
We’re building a living archive of the Christmas villages people have inherited, collected, loved, packed away, unpacked, and carried with them through the years. And because we believe the stories are just as precious as the objects themselves, we’d love to hear yours!
If you’d like to participate, we’ll invite you to bring your Christmas village building to Misselthwaite Manor for a cozy conversation about the memories surrounding it. We’ll sit down together, turn on the camera, and simply chat. There’s no script to memorize and no perfect story to tell. We’re interested in the little details—the people, traditions, places, and moments that made Christmas feel like Christmas to you.
Our conversations take a little Christmas Carol-style journey: back through the Christmas Pasts that made you who you are today, into the traditions of your Christmas Present, and toward the Christmas Future we each hope to leave behind.
Your story doesn’t have to be grand. In fact, sometimes the smallest memories are the ones we treasure most. The buildings themselves will become part of our permanent Christmas village displayed in Après Moi, the Commons’ wintertime dry speakeasy. And the stories become part of the Inherited Recollections archive—a growing collection of ordinary family histories, holiday traditions, and the things we choose to carry with us.
Rather not chat at the Manor? That’s okay, too! You can share your recollection in writing, by audio, or by sending us a video of your own.
Have a building with a story to tell? Reach out below. We’d love to hear it—and help give a piece of your family’s history a new home in the village.