Highlights Archives
Villa Louis to Celebrate an 1890s Christmas
Villa Louis, the Wisconsin Historical Society's grand Victorian house museum in Prairie du Chien, will ring in the holiday season with "An 1890s Christmas Holiday" on Saturday and Sunday, December 1-2 and December 8-9. The mansion, decked out from top to bottom in its Victorian finest, will be open for special holiday tours each of those days. Special lamplight tours will be offered from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on both Saturday evenings, December 1 and December 8. A special Christmas workshop for children ages 9-12 will be held on Saturday, December 15.
The event will focus on three elements of the holiday season and winter on the banks of the Mississippi River: preparing for a visit from St. Nicholas; Christmas Day in the morning; and a New Year's gala ball and reception. Information drawn from the Dousman family archives and 19th-century Prairie du Chien newspapers provide documentation for exploring these themes through the lens of the Dousman family and the Villa Louis household. Rooms of the restored mansion will be festooned with decorations of the 1890s, as documented by Dousman family records as well as turn-of the-20th-century photographs and periodicals.
Visitors will be treated as guests of the family, as authentically attired guides regale their houseguests with tales of holidays past in the storied hilltop mansion.
 The parlor of the Villa Louis decorated for the holidays The sitting room, lined with family portraits and photographs, presents a cozy cocoon where Dousman family members passed the long evenings before Christmas — planning events, writing invitations and playing parlor games. Across the hall, the formal parlor presents Christmas morning with a decorated tree taking center stage amid the mansion's best furnishings and accessories. Below the tree is an elves' bag of stylish gifts and toys, based on Christmas bills and receipts preserved in the Dousman archives.
In the elegant dining room, the table will be set for a midnight New Year's supper, while in the kitchen the Dousman family cook will reveal her plans for Christmas dinner, the New Year's ball, and all of the specialty cooking that goes on in between.
New this year is the Children's Christmas Workshop on Saturday, December 15. Two sessions will be presented — from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Each session will be limited to 16 children, ages 9-12. Participants will bake cookies and make other Christmas treats in the Villa Louis kitchen, fabricate authentic Victorian ornaments, help decorate a candle-lit tree and assemble a Christmas tea party. The Christmas workshop fee is $20 per child, with advance reservations required. To make reservations, call Villa Louis at 608-326-2721.
For complete details, including location, admission fees, a map and contact information, visit the Villa Louis visitor information page.
:: Posted November 19, 2007
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