Old-school holiday at McFarland House
As Rebecca Pascoe jokes, if she wasn’t already working here she’d bring her family here.
There’s something about Niagara-on-the-Lake’s McFarland House decked out for Christmas. Some people visit after another stressful day of shopping. Some bring their kids to remind them when Christmas wasn’t so frantic.
Most all leave feeling decompressed. Between the vintage decorations, homemade cookies and historic carols, it’s a throwback to what Christmas felt like in Niagara 200 years ago.
“I would love to go to something like this if I had time — it’s just so nice,” said Pascoe, the McFarland House curator. “It brings all of those things from your own past back. It’s exactly the kind of thing that you’d want to do with your family.”
The historic home’s annual Victorian Christmas, which wrapped up Sunday, is a detailed recreation with hundreds of handmade decorations by the volunteer group Garden Club of Niagara. Many of the plants and flowers were tended to over the summer in preparation, just as homeowners did in the early 19th century.
“They start in the summertime, taking things out of their gardens to make crafts, to dry things, to literally bring Christmas inside the way people would have done in the 19th century,” said Pascoe.
“Unlike today, you just can’t go last-minute to your favourite chain store and buy things. People would have had to think a long time in advance in order to do decorating.”
“Is this real?” is a popular question among visitors, says McFarland House historic interpreter Courtney Svab. Along with “Do you live here?”
As far as atmosphere, it’s tough to top the home along the Niagara Parkway, built in 1800 by John McFarland and his sons. It’s one of the few buildings in Niagara-on-the-Lake which pre-dates the War of 1812.
“Over the course of the weekend we’ll have a few hundred people,” said Pascoe.