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Christmas will be celebrated at the historic Carter Mansion Saturday at 10 and 11 a.m., and 1 and 2 p.m. Sunday. Christmastide Tours will be at 1 and 2 p.m.
Visitors will have the opportunity to spend a candlelit tour in the oldest frame house in Tennessee, which is decorated with bright greenery for the holidays.
The evening will feature music, refreshments, and historic interpreters re-creating an 18th century Christmas celebration. Tours, which are reservations, have already been sold out this evening.
In the past the tours have been held in the evening. However, with the spread of COVID still a priority concern, the event has been altered to Christmas themed daytime tours for smaller groups accompanied by one tour guide. Although different from previous years, the tours are designed to get patrons in the holiday spirit.
The rooms of the historic home are festively decorated, much like it would have been in 1780, with beautiful greenery. Visitors will learn about the Christmas customs and traditions of our colonial ancestors, hear about the historically significant Carter family and the role they played in the early settlement of Tennessee.
When Col. John Carter and his family lived in the Mansion, located on the Watauga River, it was a simpler time. Yet, Christmas was the grandest celebration of the entire year.
In colonial America the Christmas season was celebrated as a month long array of merriment and festivities signaled by caroling, feasting, dances, foxhunts, and the firing of Christmas guns. Christmas on the colonial frontier would have been much different though, with only the simplest of pleasures being offered by the humble backwoods settlers. However, in contrast, the Carters would have displayed an opulence only seen in the finest homes of Williamsburg or Philadelphia.
Built between 1175 and 1780 the Carter Mansion is the oldest frame house standing in Tennessee. The house is located on Broad Street Ext.