Bidwells welcome guests to their home for Christmas

CHICO >> Chicoans are invited to spend a Christmas evening in the home of town founders on Friday, Dec. 16.

“Christmas with the Bidwells” will run 6-8 p.m. at Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park, 525 The Esplanade, just north of downtown Chico.

The event is being put on by the Bidwell Mansion Association, in cooperation with California State Parks. The cost of admission is $30 for current members of the Mansion Association and $35 for non-members. Each admission cost includes a year’s membership in the association.

The association is the group founded in 1956 that spearheaded the effort to obtain the mansion from Chico State University and convert it from a women’s dorm into a museum honoring Chico’s founders.

The association has funded numerous restoration projects and purchases of fixtures for the mansion in the years since then. It hosts and funds interpretive projects to help modern-day Chicoans understand what life was like in John and Annie Bidwells’ day.

The Dec. 16th event will include vignettes in the mansion dining room, where actors portraying the Bidwells will interact with guests from Texas, after household staff have their own conversations, wondering what they might do that night that would not invoke Annie’s wrath.

There will be singing and music on the piano in the mansion parlor, which quests will be able to participate in.

In the visitor center, there will be a variety of light refreshments, including hot coffee and cider. In past years a local winery hosted a wine tasting. But the idea of having alcohol in the house of a prominent prohibitionist just didn’t seem right.

The mansion interior has been decorated for the holidays. The Mansion Association invites you to come see it.

Tickets are available online at https://www.bidwellmansionassociation.com, or in the mansion visitor center, which is open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays. Some tickets may be available at the door during the event.