JAMESBURG The Christmas traditions of 150 years ago and of today can both be enjoyed in Jamesburg this week.
By: Al Wicklund
JAMESBURG The Christmas traditions of 150 years ago and of today can both be enjoyed in Jamesburg this week.
The old-fashioned celebration, Christmas at Lakeview, will take place at the Buckelew mansion, on the corner of Buckelew and Pergola avenues Sunday between 1 and 4 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Jamesburg Historical Society, which takes loving care of the mansion, whose original room dates to the 1600s.
The 2003 Jamesburg celebration of Christmas was set to begin last night (Thursday) when the electric lights on the Christmas tree at Veterans Memorial Park were lit and a scavenger hunt was held.
More than 15 Christmas events are set for this month, most them planned and conducted by the Jamesburg Area Chamber of Commerce.
The celebration will include the Hanukkah Menorah lighting at sundown Dec. 21 in Veterans Memorial Park.
This weekend, Santa Claus will make his first of three consecutive Saturday appearances at A Special Tee Shop on West Railroad Avenue. He is scheduled to be there from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Santa Claus will be in town again Sunday for a Breakfast with Santa at the Jamesburg Fire House on West Railroad Avenue, 8 a.m. to noon. He also will be stopping for the afternoon at the Lakeview party, using his 19th century name St. Nicholas.
Mavis Baker of the Jamesburg Historical Society said Lakeview, once the home of the family of James Buckelew, for whom the town is named, will have refreshments including fruit punch and cookies and song.
The singing will be done by choir members of the Presbyterian Church of Jamesburg, possibly by other church groups and by the husband-wife team of Greg and Linda Newton, who have helped celebrate Christmas at Lakeview many previous times.
There will be a Christmas tree, of course, but it won’t have electric lights since Thomas Edison and his light bulbs had yet to arrive in the 1850s. The tree, for safety’s sake, also won’t have lit candles, which decorated many Christmas trees and burned down a few houses back in those days.
Ms. Baker said Sunday’s free celebration will be in the first-floor rooms of Lakeview.
"Those rooms have been brightened by new wallpaper and new curtains," she said.