Visit this Christmas

The Keeping of Christmas

Experience Fairfax House in all its splendour as it celebrates The Keeping of Christmas with a magnificent festive installation inspired by the traditions of the eighteenth century. From Mid-November until the end of December, Fairfax House is decorated throughout, not with the tinsel, baubles and Christmas trees known to so many, but with a stunning display of evergreens that shows the Georgians’ love of the natural world. Fairfax House specialises in the eighteenth century Christmas traditions, far removed from the Victorian celebrations which followed, and many of which remain today.

A magnificent dining room display with beautiful silver, table decorations, elaborate parterres of sugar sand and sculptures, and examples of Georgian sweetmeats and ice-creams is a focal point for the festive decorations. A Christmas day breakfast, including a massive Yorkshire Pie, cheddar cheese carved with a cross in true northern tradition, and other eighteenth century baked goods, is laid out in the library whilst the grand central staircase and Venetian window is a focal point for entwined evergreens. Upstairs the drawing room and saloon host a nativity display and a ‘Georgian’ holly Christmas-tree (completely unrecognisable compared to our present day variety), and in the kitchen hangs a Kissing Bough, a beautiful sphere of evergreens with candles and ring of apples.

Come and experience the magic of a Georgian Christmas at Fairfax House.