With a nip in the air and the holiday spirit warming our hearts, join the Christmas Candlelight tours at the Gov. Charles B. Aycock Birthplace State Historic Site Tuesday, Dec. 5 and Thursday, Dec. 7. Tours will be given from 6:30 p.m. Admission will be $2 for ages 5 and up. Children ages 4 and under are free.
In collaboration with the Wayne County Public Library and the Arts Council of Wayne County, the Dec. 5 program will feature a selection of hands-on holiday crafts including gingerbread cookie decorating and a paper poinsettia ornament activity celebrating the Hispanic Christmas tradition of nochebuena or Christmas Eve flowers.
The Harmony Boys of Mount Olive will provide entertainment on Dec. 7 with a mix of Christmas and Bluegrass renditions.
On both nights, costumed interpreters will illuminate the origins of rural Christmas traditions and demonstrate open-hearth cooking. Visitors are also invited to help present an old-fashioned shadow play in the site’s 1893 one-room schoolhouse. Using cardboard cut-outs and making animal sounds, interpreters will dramatize a Christmas story narrated by a volunteer.
In the historic house, costumed interpreters will explain seasonal traditions such as hanging stockings by the fireplace and homemade decorations for the tree. Our 19th century culinary expert will prepare traditional holiday dishes over a roaring fire in the kitchen. The heavily laden table in the dining room will display the various meats, collards, biscuits and plum pudding that might have been served for the Aycock’s holiday meal. Even though we cannot serve the food to our guests, samples of tasty hot apple cider will be offered at the end of the tour.
Found off the beaten path two miles south of Fremont, the Gov. Charles B. Aycock Birthplace Historic Site features a mid-19th century farmstead that includes a house, kitchen, garden, and farm animals. Period pieces furnish the house and kitchen. The 1893 Oak Plain Schoolhouse represents the grassroots statewide educational revival led by Gov. Aycock after his election in 1900. For additional information, please call (919) 242-5581 or email aycock@ncdcr.gov.