Weekend Picks: End of Summer

Arts and crafts in Shore towns, and festivals up north.

Viking Village in Barnegat Light.

Ocean Grove traditionally opens the summer season with a flea market on Memorial Day Weekend, and closes it with a Labor Day craft show; it’s on Saturday. Another Saturday craft show, with 130 artisans, is at Seaside Park.

Seaside Park is the quiet residential town between the honky-tonk boardwalk of Seaside Heights and the unspoiled natural setting of Island Beach State Park. So you can pick gifts at the craft show, and decide what kind of  “wild” to pursue next.

On Sunday, you can check the handicrafts at a show at Viking Village in Barnegat Light on LBI. At Tuckerton Seaport it’s Seafarers’ Weekend, with nautical music, pirate reenactments plus demonstrations on decoy carving and boat-making. And in Cape May it’s the Summer Send-Off Show with handcrafted items outside Convention Hall.

You don’t need to be at the Shore to find a celebration. There will be jazz and tastings of as many as 200 varieties of New Jersey wines at Jazz It Up, Saturday and Sunday at Allaire State Park in Farmingdale. Most of the state’s winemakers will be there.

Westfall Winery in Montague, however, is having a weekend-long party on its own vineyard. It’s a casual Labor Day barbecue with wines to match at a discount.

And in Budd Lake, there’s a Scandanavian Fest, celebrating the cultures of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. There will be Nordic food, crafts, demonstrating artisans, music, dancers in folk dress and historical reenactors.

Lots of ways to mark the final big weekend of Summer 2008. Enjoy every last minute!

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Tags: summer | Seaside Heights | Island Beach State Park | Barnegat Light | Tuckerton | wine | Ocean Grove | Cape May | Allaire State Park | arts and crafts | Budd Lake

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