The Manse At Christmastime

The last two weekends I did a bit of Official Reenacting at the Old Manse (where, else, honestly). The theme was Christmas in 1824, so just on the edge of when New Englanders (and Americans in general) start celebrating Christmas is a way modern folks might recognize.

I played Cornelia van Hof (whose last name went through at least 4 permutations), who is an invented person visiting from New York, where they celebrate Christmas a bit more. The other reenactors (who were rather more casual than I, being ordinary guides drafted and outfitted to the task) played various members of the Ripley family, who lived in the house at the time. My character was stuck in there to give the Ripleys an excuse to have any Christmas, since they were a minister's family and therefore even a bit further behind the times than some others.

I also made Cornelia's family be Germans from Hesse (aka Hessians, I did a lot of research ok) so she could talk about Christmas trees and things, and sing german carols as well as english ones.

I only have mediocre selfies of myself, because I just took them in between tour groups. There I am in my gloriously silly 1820s day cap and somewhat magnificent dress. I couldn't manage to get any more of the dress in the shot, which is too bad, because it looks super Right. Aside from the plaid - plaid is accurate, but this specific plaid is... probably not.

And also there's the gorgeous piano I got to play with the Christmas carols. I spent most of my time on that, and when the tour came through I'd give them my little Christmas in New York spiel and then invite/force them to sing a carol with me. They mostly went for The First Noel, although we had a few takers for Here We Come a-Wassailing. I limited the repertoire to carols that were at least written before 1824, which leaves out many of the most popular modern carols.

I also was doing simple paper crafted decorations, since there's some textual evidence of that as a particularly Christmas-y thing even in the 1810s and 20s. I didn't have any gilt paper (which some text specifically mentioned), so I just cut chains of figures from construction paper. I did angels, 1820s-looking party-goers, a lot of doves, and some Christmas stars. Just by adding little details like the feathery look on the angel wings I got a lot of impressed responses from the guests.

I also tried my hand at paper flowers, tissue paper in this case. I guess dried and paper flowers were popular winter decorations generally, and especially as the Victorian period got rolling. I should like to figure out how to make roses some time, with like cut petals, out of stiffer paper, but for now the tissue carnations kind of gave the idea.

doves all over the mantelpiece!

they have instruments - harps and cornets, I guess

At the end of the whole program I arranged all my paper crafts around the parlors, amongst the greenery.

I really enjoyed myself this Christmas, but I think for next year I'll lobby to plan a bit more in advance and get more/regular reenacting folks. That way there can be more people throughout the house and it can be operated like an open house. Maybe have a few modern guides in there too, just in case there are like furniture-dating questions. I think (and my family who visited the house agreed) that its tricky for the audience to flip from "tour mode" to "reenactor mode" and I think they could learn cool stuff even if the reenactors aren't allowed to know anything later than 1824.
Also (surprise surprise) I wasn't satisfied with some of the other outfits that were going on in the house. Since I'm basically the only costume nerd I think they'll listen to me if I press for more authenticity next year. This could be a big fancy program! And I think I maybe want to make it happen.