Feasting with Family and Friends

Each year, the Museum’s National Historic Landmark, the 1885 Ballantine House, offers visitors a taste of how Christmas was celebrated in late Victorian Newark, as English, German and Dutch holiday traditions merged into something not so very different from the way the holiday is celebrated in America today.

This historically accurate installation offers the opportunity to step back in time to learn about 19th-century life and traditions. From the Christmas tree (a German tradition) to the wooden shoes by the hearth (a Dutch tradition) to the stockings on the chimney and plum pudding in the dining room (English traditions), visitors can get a sense of how Christmas evolved into a home-based secular holiday in the 19th century.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.