Enjoy Candlelight Christmas at Museum of Appalachia

The Museum of Appalachia in Clinton will hold its Candlelight Christmas Dec. 7-8.

The celebration recreates a “meaningful holiday of simpler times,” say museum officials. Traditional trees and hand-made decorations, typical of austere pioneer days, transform the museum’s authentic log buildings.

Visitors to the event will be able to wander through the village and marvel at the treasures of a simple pioneer settlement. In the one-room, dirt-floored “Dan’l Boone” cabin, strings of popcorn and cotton bolls circle a dormant tree, while paper chains and other ornaments trim the tree in the Little Tater Valley Schoolhouse.

Sweet gum and sycamore balls are strung throughout the Mark Twain Family Cabin, and a traditional silver star tops a native red cedar Christmas tree in the turn-of-the-century Peters Homestead House. Apples, nuts, homemade toys, and oranges fill stockings hung in the cabins.

The Museum Gift and Antique Shop, which features everything from hand-crafted ornaments, locally made muscadine and moonshine jellies, and beautiful pottery, along with baskets, quilts, and plenty of Appalachian specialties, will be open for shoppers looking for stocking stuffers.

The museum’s onsite restaurant will be open for hungry travelers who want to enjoy a homemade Southern country lunch in front of the warm fireplace.

Sitting on 65 picturesque acres, the Museum of Appalachia is a living history
museum — a pioneer mountain farm-village that lends voice to the people of Southern Appalachia through the artifacts and stories they left behind. Founded in 1969 by John Rice Irwin, the museum is now a non-profit organization and a Smithsonian Affiliate museum. The recreated Appalachian community features 35 log cabins, barns, farm animals, churches, schools, and gardens. It contains more than 250,000 artifacts in three buildings, with vast collections of folk art, musical instruments, baskets, quilts, Native American artifacts, and more.

Regular admission rates apply for the Candlelight Christmas event.

The Museum of Appalachia is located at 2819 Andersonville Highway in Clinton. It offers self-guided tours and is open seven days a week. For more information, please visit www.museumofappalachia.org, contact the museum at 865-494-7680, or email museum@museumofappalachia.org.