Candlelight Tours of the Clarke and Glessner House Museums

These special 90–minute docent led tours highlight holiday customs and decorations of earlier eras. Decorations at the Clarke House, built in 1836, reflect the nascent holiday customs of the mid–1800s, including a small tabletop evergreen tree decorated with cranberries, clove–studded oranges add gold–painted walnuts. The house will be set to receive New Year's Day callers, a customary day for visiting friends and family in the mid-1800s. The fortress–like Glessner House, built in 1885–1886, will be decorated in the grand Victorian style of a well–to–do family of the 1880s; it will feature a large tree hung with vintage glass and paper ornaments, stairways draped in pine garland, and a dining table elegantly set for the Christmas feast.