It’s a long-standing holiday tradition! Adults and children alike will enjoy the sights and smells of the festive creations displayed at George Washington’s Ferry Farm!
This year’s theme is “George Washington Slept Here” and a list of contest winners can be seen here (PDF). Visitors may vote for their favorite and this ‘people’s choice’ winner will be announce after the holidays. The gingerbread houses remain on display until December 30.
Ferry Farm is open Monday – Saturday from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m and on Sunday from 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. The site will be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Admission cost for viewing the gingerbread exhibit only is $4 adults, $2 students, under 6 free. There is an additional fee for a self-guided iPad tour of Ferry Farm. Visit www.ferryfarm.org for more details.
Mr. Gingerbread happily accepts votes for favorite gingerbread house.
All the gingerbread creations make the museum gallery smell delicious!
Visitors view the gingerbread houses during Sunday’s opening reception.
Young visitor looks one of the gingerbread houses.
“Valley Forge, 1777” by Matthew Yagla
“George Washington’s Birthplace” by Rachel Bosco
“Washington’s Headquarters at Valley Forge” by C.J. Crocker
“Young George at Ferry Farm” by Lachlan Eaton shows George chopping down a cherry tree.
“Ferry Farm” by Ryan Jackson
George slept here.
“Kenmore” by Diane Jackson
“Washington’s Headquarters at Fort Cumberland” by Gavin Carpenter
Interior view of the Ft. Cumberland headquarters.
“Mary Washington House” by Maggie Jackson
“Valley Forge, Washington Headquarters” by Valerie Jackson
“Hoovervilles” by Post Oak Middle School German Club
“Schlaf gut, Geroge! (Sleep well, George!)” by Chancellor Middle School German Class
“George’s Mount Vernon” by Chancellor High School German Club
“Martha & George in Love” by Courtland High School German Club depicts the Longfellow House.
“Chatham” by Girl Scout Troop 5057
“George Washington Surveying Natural Bridge” by Mr. & Mrs. John Simmers
George with his surveying equipment
“Washington’s Revolutionary War Headquarters” by Carrie Gonzalez and Shelley Brosius depicts the Ford Mansion in Morristown, NJ
“Gingerbread Friends at Ferry Farm”
“RACSB, RAAI Gingerbread House”
“Washington Headquarters, Longfellow House” by Nancy Rowland
Although Fielding Lewis certainly built a home capable of hosting the elaborate Christmas celebrations popular in 18th century Virginia, Historic Kenmore probably never saw occasions on such a lavish scale, with the possible exception of the family’s first Christmas in the house in December 1775. If the family hosted the traditional Christmas celebration, Fielding and Betty would have welcomed lots of friends and family, serving them fancy dinners and entertaining them with dancing and music. They and their guests might have enjoyed fox hunts as well.
Virginians regularly included fox hunts as part of their Christmas celebrations.[1] In an era long before environmental conservation, colonial Virginians viewed foxes as pests that endangered livestock, which is why they hunted them so relentlessly.[2]Additionally, during hunts, gentry men like George Washington could show off their hunting dogs and their skill at horseback riding while chasing foxes through the countryside.
George Washington loved fox hunting. In the year 1768, for example, he went on fox hunts 40 different times. These hunts often lasted hours. On a March day in 1768, he caught “a fox with a bobd Tail & cut Ears, after 7 hours chase.”
George owned numerous hunting dogs and “helped develop the breed known as the American Foxhound.” These hounds chased the fox and hunters on horseback chased the hounds. The chase required galloping horses to jump over streams, bushes, and fences and riders to duck under low-hanging tree limbs. Fox hunting allowed wealthy Virginians to show-off their horse riding skills and George was widely considered an excellent horseman.
Hunters also wore special clothes. George went hunting in “a blue riding frock and scarlet waistcoat threaded with gold lace and topped by a black velvet cap. He wore high boots and carried a . . . riding crop.”[2] He wore cuff links that said “tallio” on them – that’s what hunters would shout when they found a fox. These cufflinks were unearthed by archaeologists at George Washington’s Ferry Farm and their discovery hint at George’s interest in fox hunting even in his younger years. He also hung paintings of fox hunts on the walls of his home at Mount Vernon.
Cufflinks discovered in the parlor root cellar and yard of the Washington House at Ferry Farm show a fox running across grassy rolling hills with the word “tallio” engraved above. This is a popular 18th century motif.
Like the George’s paintings at Mount Vernon, Fielding Lewis included foxes in the decor of his home. At Kenmore, the Lewis children were always reminded of the sneaky ways of foxes when they looked at a picture above the Dining Room fireplace. The plaster image illustrates the Aesop’s fable known as “The Fox and the Crow.”
This plaster over-mantle in Historic Kenmore’s dining room depicts the Aesop’s Fable known as “The Fox and the Crow.”
One day a fox saw a crow flying with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree. “That’s for me!’ said Master Fox, and he walked up to the foot of the tree.
“Good-day, Mistress Crow,” he cried, “How well you are looking today; how shiny your feathers; how bright your eyes. Your voice must be more beautiful than that of other birds. Won’t you, please, sing me a song that I may know you are the Queen of Birds?
The crow, quite happy to hear such praise, began to sing her best – “Caw, Caw, Caw”, but when she opened her beak, the piece of cheese dropped to the ground and was snapped up by Master Fox.
A close-up view of the over-mantle shows Mistress Crow dropping her cheese to be scooped up by Master Fox.
“Aha, Mistress Crow,” said he. “That was what I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you some advice for the future: “Beware of false flattery.”
This Christmas, some sneaky foxes have found their way into Kenmore.
A sneaky fox hiding somewhere inside Kenmore.
During the holiday season, younger visitors can help us look for them in a special scavenger hunt and learn about the colonial Christmas custom of fox hunting.
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
[1] Philip Vickers Fithian, Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, ed Hunter Dickinson Farish (Williamsburg, Va., 1943), entry for Dec. 18, 1773: 44
[2] Jane Carson, Colonial Virginians at Play, Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1998: 62-64
[3] Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life, New York: Penguin Press, 2010: 124-5.
As thanksgiving approaches we turn our thoughts to tradition, family, and feast. Thanksgiving traditions call to mind family around a table full of food, a roast turkey with cranberry sauce, or maybe even a romanticized recreation of New England meal from the 17th century. But what is the history behind that tradition? What would people of the 18th century Virginia thought of our feast? Would Betty and George Washington have sat down for a meal of turkey and mashed potatoes in late November?
Thanksgiving as a national holiday wasn’t born until the 19th century and many modern American concepts of Thanksgiving come from legend and advertising.
The First Thanksgiving 1621 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899). “The painting shows common misconceptions about the event that persist to modern times: Pilgrims did not wear such outfits, and the Wampanoag are dressed in the style of Native Americans from the Great Plains” says wikipedia.org. Public domain.
But when you peel back the layers of myth and romance in the above painting, in the advertising, and in the legends, you find a history deeply rooted in the 18th century and just as at home in Virginia as in Massachusetts.
While many people tend to look to colonial New England as the origin point for this late fall celebration, these bountiful autumn feasts have existed in places all over the world and for much longer. Many agrarian cultures have celebrated harvest festivals to mark the end of the harvest season. Families and communities came together, celebrated the bounty of the harvest, and gave thanks for all they had.
In the 1700s, Virginian households were familiar with a large fall feast. Produce that hadn’t been preserved had to be eaten. Cooler weather meant it was time to butcher and preserve meat. Soon, winter weather would make travel impractical. Any farm that enjoyed a bountiful year could celebrate with a large feast in the late fall.
But what would have been served at those feasts?
The dishes typically associated with Thanksgiving are inherently American. Turkey, potatoes, pumpkins, and cranberries are indigenous to the Americas and were unknown to Europeans prior to the 1500s. By the 18th century, Atlantic trade changed this. Some American produce like cranberries and pumpkins did not enjoy popularity in England. However, other American food had been fully accepted into kitchens and cookbooks on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Lewis family owned Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple, a cookbook from which Betty undoubtedly pulled many of her recipes. It contains multiple dishes modern Americans would consider typical Thanksgiving fare. It provides instructions for roasting a turkey complete with stuffing, making gravies for every kind of meat/preparation, and baking a plethora of desserts. It even contains a mashed potato recipe on page 193 that would be perfectly at home on any modern table.
BOIL your potatoes, peel them, and put them into a sauce-pan, mash them well; to two pounds of potatoes put a pint of milk, a little salt, stir them together, take care that they don’t stick to the bottom, then take a quarter of a pound of butter, stir it in, serve it up.
But if we are going to study Thanksgiving’s historic details, what about the term itself? Thankfully, we have George Washington himself to look to. Seventeen months after the ratification of the Constitution the newly elected President put forth a proclamation at the request of the Congress and Senate that…
Thanksgiving proclamation of 1789 by President George Washington. Library of Congress photo.
The day assigned was November 26, 1789, the last Thursday of the month.
We may not know whether or not Mary Washington ever sat her family around a large turkey dinner at Ferry Farm in late November, but we do know that a large harvest meal would not have been uncommon. Since Hannah Glasse’s cookbook rested on her shelf, we can have confidence that Betty Washington Lewis would have approved of our present-day mashed potatoes and roast turkey. Finally, we can read the words of Thanksgiving proclaimed to Americans by George Washington, as the new nation’s first president. When you sit down with family next week, remember that you are part of long tradition and celebrating something truly American.
Joe Ziarko
Manager of Interpretation & Visitor Services
Today – January 6 – marks the end of Christmas or, at least, it did two centuries ago. If we lived in the days of George Washington, Betty Washington Lewis, and Fielding Lewis and moved within their social circle, we would all be preparing for the grandest celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which began on December 25. This grand event, known as Twelfth Night, was celebrated much in the same way that many of us mark New Year’s Eve with family and friends gathered together for food, drink, sweets, music, dancing, games, and conversation.
This past weekend, Historic Kenmore hosted just such a celebration in the form of a theatrical presentation titled “Twelfth Night at Kenmore.” Set in January 1776, as Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis end their first Christmas in their newly built home, “Twelfth Night at Kenmore” depicted an unusual seasonal celebration, as the growing American Revolution brings fear, doubt, and frustration to the Lewis family, their friends, and members of the enslaved community.
Kenmore is lit for the celebration.
Betty Washington Lewis (Amy Wolf) and daughter-in-law Nancy Alexander Lewis (Juliana Jones) ponder how the war might impact the family.
Betty welcomes her guests.
Guests listen to Betty’s welcome.
(l-r) John Lewis (Michael Taylor) and George Lewis (Will Goldstein), two of Fielding Lewis’s sons, are joined by Captain Richard Taylor (Scott Houk) , a local ship’s master, in the singing of a traditional carol.
Visitors, some who came dressed in colonial-era clothing, join in the singing.
Fielding Lewis (John Hollinger) leads the singing.
Our excellent musicians for the evening: Zach, Kelsey, Kaylee, and Luke Payne.
George Weedon, a leading Fredericksburg patriot and tavernkeeper.
Captain Taylor and George Weedon argue about the wisdom of suspending horse racing because of the war.
The men continue debating.
George Lewis (Will Goldstein) expresses his desire to enlist in the Continental Army.
Captain Taylor, John Lewis, and George Lewis play cards while discussing George’s desire to enlist.
Hetty (Ashlee’ James), an enslaved washerwoman and house servant for the Lewises, overheard party guests talking about Lord Dunmore’s offer of freedom to slaves and wonders if she ought to run away to the British side.
In the colonial-era, the Christmas season lasted into January and concluded on Twelfth Night, a festive evening to mark the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas and celebrated much like our New Year’s Eve is today. While the entire period featured frequent banquets and balls with much food and spirits, Twelfth Night was especially known for its revelry.
Just as we do today, many colonial Americans got into the holiday ‘spirit’ with a glass of something special and warming on Twelfth Night. Special drinks called for distinctive mugs, glasses, and containers that were both functional and designed to impress your party guests. In these containers, early Americans enjoyed familiar festive beverages like eggnog, hot chocolate, hot toddies, and punch. At the same time, some of their holiday drinks are now a thing of the past or perhaps only enjoyed by those imbibers with an appreciation for history.
Many of these holiday beverages were created out of a desire to preserve the taste of fresh fruits harvested in the summer and fall so they could be enjoyed during the winter months. Cherry ‘Bounce’ is a great example of this – in addition to being fun to say! Easy to make, cherry bounce was started in the early summer when the fruit is ripe. Fresh cherries (traditionally of the sour variety) were placed in bottles and topped off with brandy then stored for as long as you could stand to wait. Leaving the fruit to infuse as long as possible increased the flavor and lent a lovely red color to the brandy. The decanted off-flavored brandy was mixed with sugar and spices. Martha Washington possessed a recipe for cherry bounce that included cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg and George Washington was said to have loved it so much that he took some in a canteen with him on a trip over the Allegheny Mountains in 1784.
Copper wheel engraved wine glass.
Syllabub is another colonial beverage that has been forgotten. Originating in England, this odd-sounding half-dessert, half-cocktail, was created by combining spirts such as wine, sherry, ale or cider with fresh milk – preferably so fresh that it had just come out of the cow and was still warm! In fact, some recipes stated that a maid should milk the cow directly into a pan of your chosen spirit. Unfortunately, this technique probably also resulted in some ‘barn yard’ material ending up in the concoction. Sugar, spices and possibly citrus were then added. While there are many versions of syllabubs, it often involved a frothy mixture of whipped egg whites, curd or cream that can be spooned off and eaten while you drink the liquid whey that separates beneath. Served in a conical glass and sometimes displayed on a pyramid-shaped dessert tray with colorful jellies, syllabub made for a very festive holiday drink.
A Copper Wheel engraved dessert/fortified wine glass used to serve syllabub.
While many people may not have heard of syllabub and cherry bounce, wassail is a term that most are familiar with even if they’re not entirely sure what it is. Actually, wassail was both a beverage and an activity. Similar to today’s mulled ciders and wine, wassail was often served from a punch bowl passed around from person to person in an act of sharing and celebration. The old Christmas carol “Here We Come A-Wassailing” describes the act of going from house to house singing and wishing good cheer while also sipping the punch-like drink composed of hot wine or ale mixed with spices, apples and sometimes topped with bread or toast. But before you condemn our ancestors for drinking odd things, just think what future generations might think of what we consume today. And perhaps try a colonial holiday beverage or two this Twelfth Night and evoke the spirit of holidays past!
Hand-blown mug for hot beverages such as wassail.
You can experience a dramatic theater presentation depicting a Twelfth Night celebration (minus the alcohol) at Historic Kenmore on Saturday, January 3 or Sunday, January 4. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 540-370-0732 x24 or emailing hayes@gwffoundation.org. Visit the events page on http://www.kenmore.org for more information!
Mara Kaktins
Archaeologist, Ceramics and Glass Specialist
Six-year-old George Washington and his family moved to the land we call Ferry Farm late in 1738, perhaps even in time to mark Christmas in their new home. If so, it was the first of many. George lived at Ferry Farm into young adulthood. Interestingly, the best documented Christmas he spent in Fredericksburg was actually in 1769, long after his boyhood years, and it paints a picture of the holiday as typically celebrated in Virginia, past and present.
George Washington at age 40 in 1772, three years after the Christmas of 1769. By J.W. Paradise (engraving) from a picture by J.G. Chapman after Charles Wilson Peale [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.After the House of Burgesses recessed, 36-year-old George Washington left Williamsburg for home on December 21, 1769. Instead of traveling all the way to Mount Vernon, he stopped in Fredericksburg on December 23 and stayed in town through Christmas. He arrived at “4 Oclock in the Aftern.” and went to the home of his brother-in-law Fielding Lewis. In 1769, the Lewis family did not yet live in the brick home we call Kenmore. Instead, they were located near the present-day corner of Princess Anne and Lewis Streets. That evening, George “ding. [dined] at Colo. Lewis” and he and Fielding may have been joined by George’s sister Betty, his young nephews George, Charles, Samuel, Lawrence, Robert, and his niece Betty. Christmas was a period of rest that Virginians used for long visits and large meals with family and friends. The meals amounted to feasts and a Christmas meal at Mount Vernon once featured, for example, “an elegant variety of roast beef, veal, turkey, ducks, fowls, hams &c.; puddings, jellies, oranges, apples, nuts, almonds, figs, raisins, & a variety of wines & punch. . .”[1]
On Christmas Eve, which was a Sunday, George “Went to Prayers, & dined afterwds. at Colo. Lewis.” The prayer service he attended probably took place at St. George’s Church, an wooden structure located on the site of today’s St. George’s Episcopal Church. Many colonial Virginians combined the holiday’s religious nature with secular activities such as parties, much as we do today. Washington was no different. After his morning at church, he passed the evening in Julian’s Tavern with Edward Jones, the overseer of Ferry Farm, where George’s mother Mary still lived. This tavern was located at the corner of Amelia and Caroline Streets.
Christmas Day was spent with the Lewis family and George won 2 pounds and 5 shillings playing cards. Card playing for money was another aspect of Christmas carousing enjoyed by Virginians, whether men, women, or children. Popular games included whist (similar to bridge), and piquet (similar to rummy) and were great ways to pass the time when visiting family and friends during Christmas.
On December 26, Washington prepared to continue his journey home by going to to the barber and paying for repairs to his carriage. Before leaving, though, he again “Dined at Colo. Lewis” and then “went over the River and logd at my Mothers” for his final night in Fredericksburg. After giving Mary 6 pounds in cash, George left Ferry Farm on the 27th and arrived home at Mount Vernon on December 28.
The Christmas season of the colonial era lasted much longer than ours does, extending into January and concluding on Twelfth Night, a festive evening to mark the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas and celebrated much like our New Year’s Eve is today. During the first days of 1770 at Mount Vernon, Washington and his family continued visiting friends and hosted two dinners, including one on Twelfth Night. It appears to have been a relatively subdued affair with only immediate family and four or five neighbors. Three years later, on January 6, 1773, he had at least fourteen guests, excluding his own family, at a Twelfth Night celebration.
Christmas 1769 was one of many that George Washington spent in Fredericksburg. It is the only one for which he recorded his activities, however. He spent time with family, he enjoyed several good meals, he went to church, he drank at a local tavern, he won some money at cards, and he attended or hosted several celebratory gatherings. All-in-all, his was a Christmas spent in ways not all that different from the ways many of us will spend our own holidays.
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
[1] Theophilus Bradbury quoted in Laura F. Winner, A Cheerful & Comfortable Faith: Anglican Religious Practice in the Elite Households of Eighteenth-Century Virginia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010: 130.
This year is our first-ever “A Wee Christmas — Dollhouses and Miniatures Show” at Historic Kenmore! “A Wee Christmas” has brought together many different dollhouses, miniature scenes, and figurines loaned by friends, neighbors, and staff for visitors to Kenmore Plantation to enjoy. The highly detailed, replica dollhouse of Kenmore on display in our Crowninshield Museum inspired this new holiday event. You can read a blog post about the history of the Kenmore dollhouse here.
The photos in the gallery below show several of the whimsical dollhouses and miniatures on display. To enjoy all of them up close, visit Historic Kenmore before the exhibit ends on December 30. Check out the events page on http://www.kenmore.org for more information!
“Country Church.” Submitted by James Opher.
A glimpse through the church’s front door.
Inside the country church.
“Antique Dollhouse.” Submitted by Susan Larson.
Susan bought her dollhouse during a visit to Fredericksburg, not knowning that she would soon move to the city.
“The Apple Blossom.” Submitted by David Budinger.
David built the house for his daughter, Meg (now Kenmore’s curator) around 1990.
Christmas tree inside “The Apple Blossom.”
“Plantation House.” Submitted by James Opher.
It was built in 1975…
…and renovated in 2014.
Inside the “Plantation House.”
“Bonaise” Submitted by Lucy Harmon.
“Bonaise” is a replica of the Harmons’ old farmhouse on White Oak Road in Stafford County.
Scene from “The Nutcracker.” Submitted by Anne Higgins.
“Victorian Dollhouse.” Submitted by Beth Waters Hunsinger & son Jackson Waters Hunley.
Santa gave Beth this house when she was about 9 years old.
Now, her son Jackson enjoys rearranging the furniture inside.
Interior of “Rammings’ House.” Submitted by Anna Jennings.
Made by Michael & Gloria Ramming in 1985, the house is a miniature of their home and furnishings in San Francisco, California.
“The Quilt Shop.” Submitted by Carol House.
The shop was featured in the Miniature Quilts magazine.
Tradition says that Mary Ball Washington, mother of George Washington, was well-known for her excellent gingerbread. The story goes that she even served her gingerbread to the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited Fredericksburg as part of his postwar tour of America in 1784. Inspired by this tale and as Mary’s home for three decades from 1738 to 1772, George Washington’s Ferry Farm hosts a Gingerbread Contest and Exhibit each December. This year’s event is the 28th annual and features the theme “Home Sweet Home.”
The photos in the gallery below show just a few of this year’s contest entries representing a variety of ages and skill-levels. We’re also sharing some photos of Ferry Farm decked out for the holiday season and want to thank the Ann Page Garden Club for beautifully decorating this year.
To see all the gingerbread creations and to vote for your favorite, visit Ferry Farm before the exhibit ends on December 30. Check out the events page on http://www.kenmore.org for more information!
“There’s No Place Like Home” by Valerie Jackson
“Welcome Home Sailors” by Daniel Jackson
“A Man’s Home is His Castle” by Matthew Yagla
“Home is Where the Doctor Is” by Massaponax High School German Club
“Tea Time” by Courtland High School German Program won Best in Show.
“Igloo Home” by Imogene Pastorek
“International Space Station” by The Szlyk Family
“Life’s a Beach” by The Abraham Family
“St. George’s Gingerbread Church” by Nicholas Perron
Dollhouses on display as part of our first-ever “A Wee Christmas” Dollhouses & Miniatures Show.
This holiday season, we’re excited to share with our visitors the many dollhouses and miniatures loaned by friends, neighbors, and staff to form our first-ever dollhouses and miniatures show that we’re calling “A Wee Christmas at Historic Kenmore”. A highly detailed, replica dollhouse of Kenmore on display in our Crowninshield Museum served as the inspiration behind this new exhibit. Like its real life counterpart, this unique Kenmore replica has a fascinating history all its own.
While on a visit to Fredericksburg in the spring of 1984, Florence White, an enthusiast of Georgian architecture, fell in love with Kenmore. She had been searching for years to find just the right place to make into a grand historical dollhouse. Kenmore with its simple, symmetric windows and imposing brick walls was perfect.
The dollhouse version of Historic Kenmore.
However, Florence needed someone who would construct this dollhouse with the degree of detail and intricacy that would mimic the elegant original. After a long unsuccessful search there came a chance meeting with Jim Freytag, a retired railroad man turned miniature enthusiast, and she knew she had her builder.
Jim’s first task was to visit the home that Florence wanted to replicate and gather as many details as he could. He wanted to make it as structurally authentic as possible from the number of bricks between the windows to the outside steps worn down with years of use. He toured the house taking notes on the particulars of each room, the furniture, the décor, and the layout. Photographs were not permitted inside the house so Jim purchased postcards in order to get better detail for the intricate plaster ceilings and mantels.
Some 2700 hours of work, 18,929 bricks and over $4000 later Florence had her Kenmore dollhouse. Jim had completed four bedrooms, a dining room, living room, drawing room, and study. They are each equipped with miniature pieces of furniture from a large cherry-stained Queen Anne table in the dining room flanked by two portraits of Colonel Lewis and Mrs. Lewis to canopy beds, brass candlesticks and leather boots in the bedrooms.
A view of the Chamber inside the Kenmore dollhouse.
Over twenty-six years later, the dollhouse now sits in the museum gallery at Kenmore’s visitor center for all to view. Each room still has the exact furnishings so painfully and meticulously created by Jim and positioned to Florence’s specifications. The house is a time capsule which shows Kenmore before renovations completed nearly a decade ago. Visitors can see pieces of furniture that are no longer on display and can understand the dimensions of the upper floor rooms which are not currently open to the public.
Florence’s devotion to detail and Jim’s immense skill leave us with a whimsical model of Kenmore which exudes all the elegance and beauty of the original that would have made the Colonel and Betty proud.
You can see Florence and Jim’s replica of Kenmore as well as all the other wonderful dollhouses and miniatures that make up “A Wee Christmas at Historic Kenmore” until December 30.
Historic Kenmore is decorated for the holidays, portraying what it may have looked like during the Christmas season of 1775. At that time, the Lewis family would have just moved into Kenmore a couple of months earlier, and it would have been their first Christmas in the new house. It was a time of some sadness, as well – their 15 year old son Charles had died that fall, of an unidentified illness. Although unknown at the time, it also would be the last “normal” holiday before the Revolution began in earnest.
The photos in the gallery below provide a glimpse of some traditional holiday decorations (a few have modern twists) and customs common to the 1700s.
Want to see Historic Kenmore in all of its holiday splendor? Seasonal tours are offered daily through December (Closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve). Or reserve a spot for our dramatic theater presentation that re-creates a Twelfth Night celebration inside the house on Saturday, January 3 and Sunday, January 4. See the events page on www.kenmore.org for more information!
A wreath adorns Kenmore’s front gate.
Kenmore peaks through the center of a wreath.
A wreath on the door of an administrative building.
Kenmore’s garden volunteers created the amazing wreaths and swags hanging on our buildings this year.
A wreath on the door of an administrative building.
A close-up view of a wreath.
The garden gate.
The west front of Kenmore.
Festive doors.
Magnolia in an evergreen swag.
Inside of Kenmore, we bring out greenery to decorate the banister in the Passage.
Curatorial staff attach the greenery to the banister.
In the 1700s, evergreens and local plant material, like boxwood, magnolia and holly would be brought into the house, but in small quantities.
Colonial-era decorations were quite subdued.
Branches of pine or holly would be placed in clay jars and set on tables or mantels.
In the Passage, we re-create a dessert table Betty Lewis might have created to impress her holiday guests.
We carefully unwrap jelly glasses to be displayed on the table.
The table features plum pudding, miniature marzipan fruits, candied citrus, and syllabubs.
The desserts served as the centerpiece of a Twelfth Night ball.
The Christmas season lasted much longer than ours does, extending into January to Twelfth Night (a festive night marking the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas and celebrated much like New Year’s Eve is today).
During the ball, usually around midnight, guests were treated to the unveiling of the elaborate dessert table…
…filled to overflowing with sweets and confections arranged in imaginative ways and displayed on the best silver and glassware.
There is also a hedgehog cake, a favorite of Martha Washington’s at Mount Vernon.
The lady of the house would be severely judged on the creativity of her dessert table.
Among this year’s decorations are five tiny foxes, part of scavenger hunt for our younger visitors.
Fox hunts were a popular holiday custom with colonial Virginians and were much-loved by George Washington.
The completed decorations in the Passage.
Looking down into the Passage from above.
Holiday swags with modern lights on Kenmore’s doors.
Lives & Legacies 