A Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas
by Paris Permenter & John Bigley

Winter sunshine gives the scene a slightly surreal quality. Children on their way home from a tiny one-room school walk single-file down a country lane flanked by clean newsnow. Dressed in the sober colors of their faith, the small figures are as dark as their shadows cast by the slanting afternoon light.

A description by Thomas Hardy? A lithograph by Currier and Ives? No, this timeless black and white is happening today in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, home to the Amish whose dedication to plain living and farming is legendary.

Soon it will be Christmas. Holiday decorations have bedecked city streets for weeks. But here, on tidy family farms, the "plain people" will celebrate the holiday in their own fashion, according to their religious beliefs. The only decorations to be found are those prepared by Mother Nature: snow dusting an evergreen bough, the red berries of the wild pyracantha.

Christmas means special celebrations in every part of the country. Like other regions, Lancaster County has its historic home tours, Christmas carolings, and tree lightings. With chilly air rushing shoppers to the warmth of a raging open fire at the Black Angus Antique Mall or to a glass of warmed holiday wine at the Mount Hope Winery, the entire region rings of Christmas cheer.

Lancaster County is best known for its Amish residents who take pride in their hard work on family farms, tilling the land with horses and plows as Amish farmers have for generations. In a land filled with Christmas celebrations, the Amish recognize the season only for its religious significance. A religious sect whose beliefs forbid them electricity, automobiles, gas or utility lines or anything else deemed worldly or fancy, their Christmas is devoid of Santas and Christmas trees, as they celebrate with a Christmas dinner and homemade, practical gifts.

While the Amish may prefer a low-key Christmas, the rest of Lancaster County goes all out. Stores are decked out in garlands and ribbons, while houses spruce up with candles in the windows. Moravian stars, with their multiple points, hang from many porches.

Mount Hope Estate & Winery

One of the grandest celebrations in the area takes place at the Mount Hope Estate and Winery, outside the tiny town of Manheim. This winery is located in a castle-like building which once served as the home to the heirs of Henry Bates Grubb, son of a wealthy ironmaster.

Featuring castle walls, 18-foot ceilings, a grand ballroom, and formal gardens, the home is completely decorated in the Victorian style, the favorite of Daisy Grubb. Daisy, the unmarried matriarch of the Grubb family, oversaw the renovation of the home nearly 100 years ago. The Grubbs loved using their home for elaborate parties.

Today, during the Christmas season, the 32-room mansion rings of the 1800's. Visitors may take a candlelight tour of the home, led by a guide dressed as one of the members of the Grubb dynasty. Guests are offered a glass of warmed holiday wine at the door, and a complete selection of Mount Hope wines are available for tasting around a gleaming copper bar in the Grubb billiards room. Here, served by ladies in 19th- century costumes, visitors can try Pennsylvania Dutch Spiced Apple, Sauterne, Burgundy, Chablis, Concord, and Pink Catawba. The winery uses grapes grown on the grounds and some brought in from other areas of Pennsylvania.

Wheatland

A few miles away, Christmas visitors tour President James Buchanan's home, Wheatland. This proud, red-brick home is located in the middle of a quiet Lancaster neighborhood. Standing on the elegant lawn of Wheatland, it's easy to imagine the bachelor president greeting the leading political figures of his day. Christmas at Wheatland was a festive occasion with gay holiday decorations, and today the tradition is continued. Costumed guides, wearing the dress of Buchanan's era, lead visitors through the many elegant rooms, ending with refreshments of punch and cookies, served in the mansion's parlor.

Shopping

Nearby the Buchanan home stands the nation's oldest continually operated market, Central Market. Perhaps no other area of the country is as well known for its hearty foods and luscious baked goods, and the Central Market offers the chance to taste the best the Pennsylvania Dutch have to offer. Holiday meats are sold alongside colorful poinsettas, making the Central Market a delight for the eyes as well as the palate.

If there's anything the Pennsylvania Dutch are better known for than their food, it's their crafts. Intricate quilts, handmade wooden toys, and simply clothed dolls are just a few of the crafts which have made the area famous. In the farmlands of Lancaster County, many front porches display beautiful quilts, a sign that the Amish woman of the house has quilts for sale. These crafts are made in the ancient quilting bee fashion by groups of Amish women and their daughters, clustered around a quilting frame. The Amish sect are restricted to a few drab colors in their own dress, but in their quilting they use a myriad of bright colors to produce complicated patterns.

Although the Amish live on farms, the countryside is dotted with tiny communities whose businesses serve the families. One such community is Intercourse, where the gray horse-drawn buggies favored by Amish are as common as pick-up trucks would be in a Southern town. Intercourse is home of the Kitchen Kettle Village, which began as a jam and jelly factory. Amish girls, who have been cooking alongside their mothers since they can remember, work in the Kitchen Kettle preparing 35 types of jellies and preserves as well as over 20 varieties of relishes.

Shopping on a larger scale takes place at the Stoudtburg Antique Center (formerly the Black Angus Antique Market) in nearby Adamstown. The antique booths include holiday gifts ranging from German Christmas ornaments to music boxes to mistletoe, not to mention baked goods from Lancaster County kitchens.

In Lancaster County, it's easy to feel the spirit of Christmas past as well as Christmas present. Old holiday traditions stand alongside new decorations to give the region a unique Christmas cheer, one where an appreciation of the past blends with new celebrations.

Suddenly, twilight has fallen upon Lancaster County. The children have come home from school to their chores. Across the valley, one by one, farmhouse windows show pale lamplight as the Amish sit down to their evening meal. A dog barks, and is answered by another. The farms settle down for the long winter evening, each alone but sharing in the other's fortune, neighbors bound by much more than geography.

In the streets of Lancaster, Christmas lights twinkle their merry message and the sound of carols carries over the chilly streets and into gaily decorated homes and businesses. Although the two worlds--that of the quiet Amish farmland and that of the downtown city--seem two ends of the spectrum, they are really one. In Lancaster County, where buggies exist in harmony with big city buses, the two worlds may enjoy different celebrations, but the Christmas spirit they share is still the same.

For More Information

For more, contact the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.padutchcountry.com/

Photos courtesy Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau