Featherstone Center for the Arts has a raft of classes this holiday season to help you make your home festive and inviting.

Lynn Hoeft offers a trio of workshops for participants intent on creating a happy holiday home. From 9 a.m. to noon tomorrow — Saturday, Nov. 10 — her first program is on how to make memorable pomanders and centerpieces. She shows how to create a sweet-smelling, clove-studded orange, or pomander, then graduates to demonstrate a holiday centerpiece in a planter of bright green moss, sparkling red berries and votive candles.

Many people are familiar with the whaling history of Nantucket and New Bedford. Fewer, however, know the rich and fascinating history of the Martha’s Vineyard fleet and its mariners. Never as big as its more famous whaling rivals, it nevertheless played a role in America’s nautical history as a port. But more importantly, the Vineyard produced great whaling captains and mates. Some of them, such as George Fred Tilton, were among the most famous sea ícaptains ever.

The Martha’s Vineyard Film Society presents the comic feature The Big Bad Swim tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Spring street in Vineyard Haven.

A community pool in Connecticut is the setting for this film in which, as you might expect, learning to swim is the metaphor for life: Ultimately it’s better to jump in with both feet, and get in the swim, rather than sit on the deck, because life happens to you anyway.

Charter School

Monday, Nov. 12: Veterans Day, no school.

Tuesday, Nov. 13: Corn chowder, grilled cheese sandwich, peach crisp and milk.

Wednesday, Nov. 14: Bagels with cream cheese, tuna salad or melted cheese and tomato, Moroccan salad, pineapple and milk.

Thursday, Nov. 15: Pizza (plain cheese, pepperoni or pesto and artichoke, tossed salad, fresh fruit and milk.

Friday, Nov. 16: Baked chicken, black beans, sweet potatoes, brown rice, pears and milk.

Edgartown

Small Wonders Show

Louisa Gould Gallery will opens its annual Small Wonders show the day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, Nov. 23, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. This show features Marjorie Mason’s new oils, Robert Jewett’s ceramics and pottery and Louisa Gould and Thaw Malin’s new small paintings. This event is free with refreshments and entertainment.

Free Shakespeare is available this weekend, from the awardwinning drama department at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Shaking up their usual fall program, the student thepians are performing selected scenes from the Bard and other playwrights instead of a single play.

Tonight at 7 p.m. it’s selected scenes from As You Like It, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet.

On Saturday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m., the Martha’s Vineyard Skate Park Association will hold its third competition at the skate park, which is on the Vineyard Haven-Edgartown Road across from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. The rain date is Sunday, Nov. 11.

Registration is $10, with the money going to benefit the park. Registration begins at the skate park at noon. Helmets are required for all skaters. Food and beverages will be provided to entrants.

The Patriots-Colts tilt last week had Super Bowl-type hype but about two dozen Pats Island faithfuls enjoyed the game in relative secrecy.

“Hey, don’t tell. Let’s keep this a secret,” joked Lenny Verville of Oak Bluffs to this reporter at Outerland on Sunday afternoon. Mr. Verville and his friend Linda Hammond were enveloped by the surround sounds of the game, watching a crisp, life-size game picture on an eight-by-fourteen-foot screen set up on the Outlerland stage.

Starfish Talk

Director of the Marine and Paleobiological Research Institute Fred Hotchkiss will present a lecture entitled Starfish and the Number Five at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The talk features the mystery of the starfish’s five-part symmetry, common in the plant world but a rarity in the animal world.

Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard will present Handmade from the Heart again this Christmas season.

All local artisans from candlestick makers to bakers are invited to contribute to this holiday fundraiser for Hospice.

The items will be sold at the Dr. Daniel Fisher House on Main street in Edgartown on Dec. 8 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Hospice is seeking any unique, handmade items, including jewelry, needlepoint, knitted items, paintings, photographs, Christmas ornaments and more.