Photo by David M. Doody
While some holiday traditions have stood for centuries (Christmas trees and carols), others have faded from popular view (when was the last time you hung a box of animal crackers as an ornament?). At these Southern destinations, what’s old is new again every December. From Christmas Eve bonfires and glowing Moravian stars to hayrides and fife and drum corps marches, these yuletide celebrations offer a glimpse of Christmas as it used to be—in many cases, even before it arrived in the New World.
Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Christmas in the Colony
At Colonial Williamsburg—the country’s largest outdoor living-history museum—Christmas traditions from the 18th and 19th centuries come alive. Think carolers singing classic hymns, holiday teas, orange pomander workshops, musket demonstrations, and theatrical performances (A Soldier’s Christmas, about a Revolutionary War soldier returning home). During December’s Grand Illumination weekends, celebrants line the streets to watch the Lighting of the Cressets and the Celebration of the Yule Log, when the Fife and Drum Corps marches alongside a wagon carrying the log from Capitol Circle to the bonfire at Market Square. Revelers may toss a sprig of greenery into the fire to bid farewell to the previous year’s woes and bring luck to the new year. The celebration culminates with dazzling fireworks, a reminder of the “public illuminations” that revolutionaries launched to prove it wasn’t just the British monarch who could put on a spectacular show.
November 25–January 1; Grand Illumination: December 7, 14, & 21
Courtesy of George Washington's Mount Vernon
Founding Father Festivities
In 1787, George Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a live camel to his Virginia home to entertain holiday guests. Today, Christmastime visitors to George Washington’s Mount Vernon can meet Aladdin—another live camel—themselves and experience what it was like to be a holiday guest at the home of the country’s first president and his wife, Martha. Attend a baking demonstration using grains authentic to the period—some ground at Washington’s Gristmill— and purchase cakes and cookies to take home. Dance to folk music played by the resident fifer; learn about the period’s holiday traditions during character-guided candlelit tours of the decorated mansion; shop for ornaments or gifts at an 18th-century winter craft market; and marvel at fireworks launched over the Potomac River during Christmas Illuminations, where you’ll receive season’s greetings from General Washington himself.
Schedule note: Much of the mansion will be closed (with limited programming) during the 2024 holiday season due to a historic revitalization project. Full holiday programming will return in 2025.
Courtesy of Visit New Orleans
Up in Flames
Drive down Louisiana state highways 18 and 44 on Christmas Eve, and you’ll be treated to an unconventional kind of holiday light show: row upon row of 15-foot, pyramid-shaped bonfires lining the levees of the lower Mississippi River. Now a staple of the southern river parishes—particularly St. James—the exact origins of the centuries-old tradition are hazy. Many believe the custom to be an adaptation of bygone European solstice festivals, brought to the state in the early 1700s by French-German settlers; others say the fires were used to guide churchgoers to midnight Mass. Most modern celebrants, however, claim the bonfires light a path for Papa Noel, the Cajun Santa Claus.
December 24
Courtesy of Shaker Village
A Faithful Gathering
The Shakers, a splinter sect of Quakerism (“shaking Quakers”), were among the first Protestant Christians in America to celebrate Christmas. When the Shaker community was active in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, during the 1800s, they witnessed Christmas evolve from a day of fasting and prayer to a season of decorating, gift-giving, and feasting. This remarkable shift is explained on candlelight tours of the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, along with a look at the Shakers’ changing beliefs and traditions. Guests of Pleasant Hill’s Illuminated Evenings can also take hayrides through the village, hear local musicians performing holiday tunes in the 1820 Meeting House, and shop for gifts, such as reproduction Shaker furniture and housewares (including their iconic, oval-shaped nesting boxes). Be sure to climb to the top of the spiral staircase in the 1839 Trustees’ Office and Guest House and peer down for a fresh perspective on the Christmas tree standing in the heart of the meticulously crafted flights of winding stairs.
December 7, 14, & 21
Courtesy of Visit Winston-Salem
Golden Glow
Winston-Salem’s holiday traditions date back to 1766, when Moravians (a Protestant denomination from central Europe) founded Salem, North Carolina. Today, visitors to Old Salem Museums & Gardens cross over the Heritage Bridge beneath dozens of glowing Moravian stars—representing the Star of Bethlehem—as they enter the historical settlement of more than 100 restored or reconstructed buildings. Along Main Street, evergreen wreaths and garlands decorate doors, fences, and lampposts; inside the historic structures, wooden Christmas pyramids adorned with greenery, fruit, and candles signify the season, along with intricate, miniature holiday villages and nativity scenes (traditionally called putz). Throughout the village, dozens of craftspeople, musicians, and re-enactors in period attire recreate Christmas traditions from two centuries ago. Attend a candle tea service (an Old Salem tradition since 1929) in the Single Brothers’ House, which includes beeswax candlemaking demonstrations, carols played on the 1797 Tannenberg organ, and samplings of Moravian coffee and baked goods. Stop in at the popular Winker Bakery, which opened in 1800, for iconic sugar cakes and paper-thin, super-crispy ginger cookies. And join in evening tours of Old Salem led by interpreters and bathed in the glow of lantern light.
November 13–December 28
Courtesy of the Flagler Museum
Deck the Whitehalls
Expect Gilded Age opulence during Christmas at Whitehall, industrial tycoon Henry Morrison Flagler’s 100,000-square-foot mansion-turned-museum. At the turn of the 20th century, he and his wife, Mary Lily, were widely known for their hospitality, and Christmas celebrations helped ring in the Palm Beach social season. Nowadays, a Flagler descendant officially kicks off the festivities each year by lighting the 16-foot-tall Christmas tree in the Grand Hall. Historically accurate decorations abound: Spanish moss, for example, drapes Christmas trees strung with iconic Barnum’s animal-cracker boxes (a tradition started in 1902, when the boxes were first released with strings). Visitors can take docent-led tours or attend the museum’s annual holiday lecture; this year’s will delve into O. Henry’s holiday-themed short story, “The Gift of the Magi,” published in 1905.
Late November through early January; lecture takes place December 1
Courtesy of the Biltmore Company
A Very Merry Mansion
Built in the French Renaissance Revival style for George Washington Vanderbilt II, Biltmore celebrated the arrival of its first-ever guests on Christmas Eve 1895. Today, the holidays remain a magical time to visit the largest privately owned home in the country, where some of Vanderbilt’s descendants still reside. The 250-room Gilded Age chateau goes all out, with a 55-foot Norway spruce towering over the front lawn and creatively themed rooms that often reflect design elements from the original decor and furniture. (For example, the library’s holiday decorations this year draw inspiration from the room’s Ming dynasty fish bowls.) An evening tour offers the best opportunity to experience Biltmore as it was on that first Christmas, when rooms come aglow with candles and firelight and musicians throughout the home perform festive favorites.
November 2–January 5
This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Southbound.
