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Christmas isn’t over yet! It will not be celebrated until January 4 and 5 at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park. It will be Old Christmas and will be a portrayal of how colonial ancestors celebrated a holiday called “Old Christmas.”

Do The Twelve Days of Christmas sound familiar? In Colonial America, Christmas was celebrated as a 12-day holiday with many traditions and customs. These 12 days of feasting, and merrymaking known as “Christmastide,” began on December 25 and concluded on January 5, or “Twelfth Night” with a grand celebration.

Saturday, Jan. 4, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Jan. 5,, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Washington County Militia, host living history organization at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park, will hold its annual Old Christmas Celebration. 

Visitors, once they enter the gates of Fort Watauga, will travel back in time to an 18th century Old Christmas “Jollification.” Each cabin in the fort will be the setting of Christmas, New Year, and 12th Night traditions as celebrated by the settlers of different cultures on the colonial frontier. Many of today’s Christmas customs are taken from centuries-old practices such as English Christmas Guns, the Irish Holly Wreath, the German Tannenbaum, Scottish First Footing, and the Dutch Sinterklaas. Visitors will see and learn how Christmas practices of today are steeped in old-world traditions.

Extend your Holiday season and celebration with a visit to Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park for a fun, entertaining, and educational family outing. Arrive ready to be filled with the spirit of Christmas. 

Old Christmas at Fort Watauga is an event that is sure to become a holiday tradition with your family year after year. 

Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park is located at 1651 W. Elk Ave. in Elizabethton. For more information contact the Park at 423-543-5808.