The soft glow of a historic holiday
Candlelight tours Friday at Lincoln Log Cabin
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[November 29, 2012]
LERNA -- A Christmas holiday
tradition that looks like it came straight off a greeting card can
be experienced during the Christmas Candlelight Tours at Lincoln Log
Cabin State Historic Site near Charleston on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public. |
Visitors are welcome to tour the Lincoln and Sargent Farms by
candlelit paths to see how Christmas may have been observed by
19th-century Americans. At the Lincoln Cabin, the family will gather
around the hearth and share the evening socializing, as was common
with many farm families after the busy harvest season, all the while
continuing to stay busy spinning wool, knitting and performing other
small tasks. Meanwhile, at the Sargent Farm, members of the family
will celebrate the holiday with good food and simple decorations,
with an emphasis on Christmas as a family holiday. Christmas as we
know it today was not widely celebrated on the Illinois prairie; the
Sargent family will represent a growing trend in the 19th century of
those who chose to observe the holiday as a family affair. This was
a break from some earlier traditions in which Christmas was a
raucous holiday that in many ways rivaled New Year's celebrations of
today.
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Lincoln
Log Cabin State Historic Site, administered by the
Illinois Historic
Preservation Agency, is an 86-acre pioneer farmstead that was
the last home of Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's
father and stepmother. It is located eight miles south of
Charleston. For more information, call 217-345-1845 or visit
www.lincolnlogcabin.org.
[Text from file received from the
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency] |