The Lafayette Mississippi Homemakers Council and the Mississippi State Extension Service welcome YOU and your family to the annual Holiday House, that this year is co-sponsored by the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and the Lafayette County Arena. The Holiday House Craft Fair will be held at the Lafayette County Arena, 70 FD Buddy East Parkway, Oxford, on November 4 (8:00 – 6:00 p.m.) and on November 5 (8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.)

At Mississippi State University, in the Bost Extension Center lobby, hangs a beautiful, floor-to-ceiling needlepoint map of Mississippi’s eighty-two counties. On the tapestry Lafayette County displays a book inscribed with the name,William Faulkner, along with the date 1950, which is when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature and 1955, when he earned the Pulitzer Prize. Rae Clark, of Lauderdale County, who has been a Mississippi Homemaker volunteer for over 50 years, helped sew that map. She says, “being a Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer is more about togetherness and relationships than it is about completing projects. It’s all about the people” (Barbour, Extension Matters, Busy Hands, Caring Heart).

Lafayette County has been a home for the Mississippi Homemaker Volunteers (MHV) since at least 1968, when the late Queenie Dixon became involved as an active member and served MHV for more than fifty years, and as Council Secretary for six years, Parliamentarian for at least six years, and Council President for two! At its peak in Lafayette County, when Queenie was President (1984), there were ten MHV Clubs and 179 members. Fannie Evans and Dorothy Dixon, pictured here at the 2017 Holiday House, are two of Queenie’s daughters carrying on the MHV tradition.

Mississippi Homemakers is about the people. It’s about the people the homemaker volunteers help, whether it is the Veterans at the local Veteran’s Home, the clients at the Oxford Food Pantry, the animals at the Animal Shelter, the children who receive Love Packs, the children who receive the therapy dolls and blankets sewn for the Batson Children’s Hospital of Jackson, the local and state public officials who are served an annual luncheon, or the elderly and shut-ins who are visited and brought food.

It is also about the women who make up the three current Mississippi Homemaker Volunteer clubs, Eastside MHV, Woodson-Ridge MHV, and Yocona MHV, who together make up the current Lafayette County MHV Council. These women support each other in their individual joys and griefs, in their sewing and craft projects, and in their service projects.

The Lafayette MHV Council and the Mississippi State Extension Service welcome YOU and your family to the MHV annual Holiday House, that this year is co-sponsored by the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and the Lafayette County Arena. The Holiday House Craft Fair will be held at the Lafayette County Arena, 70 FD Buddy East Parkway, Oxford, on November 4 (8:00 – 6:00 p.m.) and on November 5 (8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Come to eat: The Lafayette County Cattlemen’s Association will be selling food! Come to buy Christmas presents: Craft vendors will have lovely hand-made items for sale! Bring the children: There will be craft activities for children near the Woodson Ridge MHV booth. Come for the Silent Auction that will benefit two local non-profits! Come one, come all!!!

If you have any questions, or would like to be a vendor, please call Caitlin Hopper at 662-236-6429, Margaret Webb-Franks, at 662-816-8586, or Mari Kuhnle at 662-236-5628.