Ten days left to enter the first - and perhaps last - Progressive Charlestown Peeps Contest

Peeps® contest deadline is April 7

Sgt Peepers Lonely Hearts Club Band

By Will Collette

Last year, I’m sure I made quite a spectacle of myself when I revealed my love of marshmallow Peeps®. They’re especially good when they get stale and hard. My special joy is the Easter Peeps® diorama contests that a number of newspapers around the country run at Easter time.

For years, when Cathy and I lived in the DC area, I looked forward to the Washington Post’s annual Peeps® Contest, which is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not THE best. But lots of other papers do a pretty good job, too. Locally, the New London Day runs a respectable annual Easter Peeps® Contest.

So, despite the well known fact that very, very few people in Charlestown have a sense of humor, I figured it’s worth giving it a try. Thus, I present you with the golden opportunity to show that you are the funniest, coolest person in Charlestown by creating your own Progressive Charlestown Peeps® diorama.

Peeparoni Peepza

A “diorama” is miniature display that features a scene, real or fictional. You can do it on any topic, but we prefer (hint, hint) scenes that draw on Charlestown life and, of course, are done with marshmallow Peeps®. 


You can use any color or species of Peeps®, traditional sugar or sugar-free (send me any extra sugar-free ones you have). Click here, here,  here, and here for examples of Peeps® displays from 2011 that caught my eye.

You can do scenes from the Town Council or the Planning Commission or the secret meetings of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance or the victory party at the Sonquipaug Association. You can do scenes based on those wicked left-wing Progressive Charlestown bloggers. You can put all your favorite characters in it.

We will accept entries until the Saturday before Easter, April 7, and announce the winners - if any - on April 9.

It's easy! Here's is my Peeps rendering, tentatively titled
"Council Prez Tom Gentz gets private preview of Big Apple
Circus." This took approximately 2 minutes to prepare.
I wish I knew how to fix the scar on the side of every Peep.

Take a digital photo of your Peeps® display and e-mail it to progressivecharlestown@gmail.com. We will post the entries and invite reader evaluations of the art, humor, content and existential meaning.

However much we may heed (or more likely simply ignore) reader comments, the final decision will be made by the Progressive Charlestown team.

Since you must e-mail us to enter, why not skip the usual "Anonymous" stuff. If you have a really terrific entry and a really good reason to remain anonymous, we might go with that. But really, who wouldn't want the glory of having their name on a work of art?

We will also take care to only publish those entries that meet our rigorous standards for a cheeky political blog and reserve the right to deploy a black-out panel to cover up any really naughty bits on what might otherwise be NSFW entries.

The Grand Prize is a lifetime FREE subscription to the Progressive Charlestown Daily Update. You may enter more than once to increase your chances of winning.