For those who want a break from holiday shopping and dusting off Christmas lights, the Farmhouse Museum will offer a look back at the holiday and how it was celebrated more than a century ago.

Wagon rides with Clydesdale horses and festive music will be part of the yearly holiday celebration held by the Farmhouse Museum. The event depicts the fashions and customs of Christmas during the late 1800s, known as the Victorian era.

“Christmas was everything and everywhere, so they enjoyed decking out their houses,” says Jennifer Schulle, graduate assistant in textiles and clothing.

Along with wagon rides and festive music, children will be able to visit Santa Claus and make crafts.

Eleanor Ostendorf, curator of the Farmhouse Museum and program assistant for university museums, says the annual event appeals not only to students and faculty, but also to residents in Ames and the surrounding area.

“It’s a way of bonding the community with the university,” Ostendorf says.

Children will be able to create old-fashioned ornaments like those that were made more than a century ago. In Victorian times, children would often save cards they received over various holidays and use cotton, ribbons and pieces of tinsel to make homemade ornaments out of them, Ostendorf says.

Many rooms in the museum are decorated with examples of the first artificial trees. Because of the rural background of many Victorian households, the trees were made from dyed duck and goose feathers strung on a wire, Ostendorf says.

“It’s like stepping back in time for [children],” she says.

The celebration started a few years after the Farmhouse became a museum in 1976. The celebration had only small decorations and a tree, but a good turnout made it a yearly event, says Mary Atherly, former museum curator.

“So many people came, it demanded a bigger production,” Atherly says.

With the museum’s history as a home for ISU presidents, deans of agriculture and other faculty members since 1860, the museum made a suitable location for donations of antique ornaments and other decorations and a historic celebration, Atherly says.

Also available for viewing are various objects used during Victorian times. One object is an orange covered in cloves and cinnamon. These were used as pomanders, which made clothing smell better and were often used as gifts, Ostendorf says.

The museum will also host an open house on Dec. 7 that is more directed toward college students and faculty members with refreshments, music and a look through the museum. The Christmas decorations can also be viewed during the museum’s normal hours.

Who: Victorian Holiday

Where: Farmhouse Museum

When: 1 p.m. Sunday

Cost: Free to come, $2 for picture with Santa, $2 for wagon ride