DELAPLANE, VA - The holidays is a time for people to decorate their houses from top to bottom but back in the colonial days, things were a bit different.
"Holiday decorations at that time were a lot of garlands and wreaths using things that were still living during the winter months so you had a lot of evergreens, ivy, holly ... particularly for folks who had come from England," says Erin Brockman, chief ranger for visitors' experience.
Sky Meadows State Park held their seasonal event, where a historic house was decorated to represent Christmas during the early 1900s.
"What we've done is decorated various buildings and rooms inside of our main house to represent how folks from different time periods lived here at Sky Meadows would have celebrated the Christmas holidays," says Brockman.
It was not until the Victorian Era where people felt more comfortable in adding more jazz to raise the holiday spirit. It was even rare to see a Christmas tree inside someone's home.
"We're talking about the Colonial period and even up through the middle of the Civil War period, Christmas trees were not common in people's houses unless you were of Germanic descent," says Brockman.
The park is also well-known for its lively agriculture and is a farm that has been passed down for many generations.
"It's an opportunity for people to come back and reconnect with that farming heritage that many of us have," says Brockman. "Maybe it was back a couple of hundred years ago but at some point, most of our families were farmers at some point."
While the adults toured the historic property, the children had their fair share of arts and crafts inside the barn, making decorations to put on their tree to live up to the modern Christmas tradition.
"Holiday decorations at that time were a lot of garlands and wreaths using things that were still living during the winter months so you had a lot of evergreens, ivy, holly ... particularly for folks who had come from England," says Erin Brockman, chief ranger for visitors' experience.
Sky Meadows State Park held their seasonal event, where a historic house was decorated to represent Christmas during the early 1900s.
"What we've done is decorated various buildings and rooms inside of our main house to represent how folks from different time periods lived here at Sky Meadows would have celebrated the Christmas holidays," says Brockman.
It was not until the Victorian Era where people felt more comfortable in adding more jazz to raise the holiday spirit. It was even rare to see a Christmas tree inside someone's home.
"We're talking about the Colonial period and even up through the middle of the Civil War period, Christmas trees were not common in people's houses unless you were of Germanic descent," says Brockman.
The park is also well-known for its lively agriculture and is a farm that has been passed down for many generations.
"It's an opportunity for people to come back and reconnect with that farming heritage that many of us have," says Brockman. "Maybe it was back a couple of hundred years ago but at some point, most of our families were farmers at some point."
While the adults toured the historic property, the children had their fair share of arts and crafts inside the barn, making decorations to put on their tree to live up to the modern Christmas tradition.
