It’s the perfect winter celebration: outdoor sports; a restaurant crawl and a pancake breakfast; concerts and art shows; kids’ activities, tours and open houses, ice carving and much more will be featured during Norfolk’s first WINter Weekend, Saturday and Sunday, February 24 and 25. What’s even better, most of the events are free.

Echoing its annual three-day WIN Weekend held the first weekend in August, all of Norfolk’s organizations, businesses, and institutions have collaborated to make the event chock full of fun activities that can’t be missed. The Norfolk volunteer fire department will sell fried dough and coffee during the ambulance squad’s ice-carving event, and will man a fire pit at Infinity Bistro for hot cocoa and S’mores. The Botelle School parent/teacher organization will serve refreshments and host kids’ games at the newly revived town ice skating rink. Cocoa will be available at the North Brook rail trail during a snowshoeing event sponsored by the Rails to Trails committee.

Revelers won’t go hungry. Norfolk Net has organized a restaurant crawl late Saturday afternoon at the town’s four restaurants and the Manor House Inn. The Immaculate Conception Church will host a free pancake breakfast on Sunday. And of course, sit-down meals will be readily available at almost any time of day.

Interested in sports? There will be plenty—skating on the town rink, cross country skiing on one of Norfolk’s many trails, snowshoeing on the North Brook Trail (the committee has snowshoes to lend if you can’t bring your own) and sledding for all ages on the hill behind the Congregational Church on the green (bring your own sled). If you’re not into the outdoors, you can watch Olympic curling on TV and live action at a local club tournament during the Norfolk Curling Club’s open houses.

Music and art will be strongly represented. The Ryan Montbleau Band will perform at Infinity Hall Saturday night. On Sunday, Steve Dedman will be in the Bistro live, and Green River will be featured Friday night for those who arrive in Norfolk early. For classical music lovers, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival is sponsoring a performance by the Magari Quintet in the library on Saturday afternoon and offers the audience the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the music. As for art, there are shows by painters Tom Hlas and Alicia Mordenti, and work by 19th-century photographer Marie Kendall will be on display at the Norfolk Historical Society’s museum.

The library will host Magnificent Microscopes on Saturday morning, and the Norfolk Land Trust’s talk by “bear whisperer” Ben Kilham will be in the afternoon. The hands-on microscope session is intended primarily for kids, but the bear talk is for everyone.

To see a full schedule of events and times, go to weekendinnorfolk.org or call 860-542-5829. For updates, follow Weekend in Norfolk on Facebook. And save the date: our annual Weekend in Norfolk is coming up August 3, 4 and 5…save the first weekend in August for three days of summer fun.

Sue Frisch was born in Ohio, grew up in Virginia and moved to New York City. In 1970, she and her husband discovered Norfolk, Conn., as the ideal place to visit; 30 years later they retired and moved there permanently. Sue now gardens, volunteers for town projects and never misses a chance to say nice things about the place she lives. As a former editor, she considers herself an educator, and claims to have taught several things to herself and at least one thing to her grandson.