With the Festival of Wreaths moved across the street to the Humboldt Gallery, staff members were looking for a way to make the inside of the museum a little more festive: an Old Fashioned Christmas was born.
“Instead of using store-bought decorations or instead of us putting on a display for people to come and see, we are asking people to come in and make decorations the old fashioned way,” said Jean Price, program co-ordinator for the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery.
From now until Dec. 20, anyone can go into the museum during regular hours (Tues. to Sat. from 1 to 5 p.m.) and use the museum’s supplies to make decorations for the front area and the tree.
“We thought, ‘We could decorate, but that doesn’t seem very community spirited’ and seeing as we are the museum, we could do some old-fashioned decorations and ask people to come in and contribute their own,” Price said.
So far, it’s been a bit slow, but the program hasn’t been running that long. Price said she hopes the weather doesn’t keep people away.
For those who want to work as a group or have a bit more direction, Price will be running decoration-making sessions from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and 3-5 p.m. on Wednesdays. Groups who come in during these sessions will make a bit larger or more elaborate decorations, “Instead of one poor person sitting there chaining things for hours,” Price laughed.
The decorations will stay up until after Ukrainian Christmas on Jan. 7.
“It sort of reinforces the idea that it’s their museum as well as ours,” she said. “We might work here, but we work for them and that the Christmas season is a time for friends and community and getting together and this is the place that you can go in and do it.”
