By Karen Bloom
Old Westbury Gardens’ Holiday Celebration
Visit Old Westbury Gardens to enjoy the holiday season at Westbury House, which is grandly decorated in full holiday splendor, before closing for the winter. The holiday celebration continues this weekend with guided tours, activities, and entertainment. Stop by Friday night, Dec. 12, for the annual Holiday Toast and Tour. Tour Westbury House, then enjoy wine, desserts, and hear holiday music in the Red Ballroom, from 6-9 p.m.
The following day, Saturday, Dec. 13, features a guided tour and a children’s holiday craft workshop. Kids can create ornaments to decorate Santa’s tree, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. After the holiday celebration concludes, the decorated tree will be given to an emergency shelter for children, operated by the Interfaith Nutrition Network. Also enjoy a concert with the acclaimed Kende Trio, at 1:30 p.m. Sisters Alexis on violin, Christa on viola/piano and Daniela on cello present holiday selections.
Old Westbury Gardens is located at 71 Old Westbury Rd., Old Westbury. For further information, contact (516) 333-0048 or www.oldwestburygardens.org.
Rock Hall Museum’s Festive Afternoon
Rock Hall Museum, in Lawrence, is considered one of the finest examples of Georgian colonial architecture on Long Island. Enrolled on the National Register of Historic Places and the New York State Revolutionary War Heritage Trail, the museum is a must-see during the holidays. It is all dressed up and ready to celebrate the season with music and sweets, at its Festive Afternoon, Sunday, Dec. 14, 4-6 p.m.
In the 18th century the New Year was received with decorations of garland and festive foods. That tradition continues at Rock Hall Museum, in the form of a holiday gathering, with colonial entertainment by the Long Beach Handbell Choir of the People's Church.
Visit Rock Hall Museum at 199 Broadway, Lawrence. For information and reservations, contact (516) 239-1157.
Coe Hall’s Magical Banquet
The magnificent dining room at Coe Hall, the Elizabethan revival Gold Coast mansion built by William Robertson Coe in 1921, has been transformed into a grand Renaissance banqueting chamber. For guests who gaze upon this holiday feast for the eyes, weekends throughout December, noon-3 p.m., it’s as if royalty was expected at an elegant banquet.
For this unusual display, the elaborate gold and silver décor typical of royal occasions 400 years ago have been recreated using over 200 decorative objects made from thousands of recycled dollar store and thrift store remnants. All of them have been painted white to create a stunning “dream-like” vision. Used toys, once discarded vases, old stands for table lamps, and even part of a truck tire, have been imaginatively combined to look like a fantastic tableau; an Elizabethan banquet of 1600.
The display includes mechanical singing birds of the type that were first made in the 16th century by goldsmiths for use on dining room tables. Many fantastical animals are featured, including miniature winged horses.
It is as though Queen Elizabeth I herself is coming to dinner, perhaps to celebrate the December Solstice. The Queen made regular visits to the houses of her courtiers throughout England where she would hunt and be lavishly entertained.
The Magical Banquet is in part a homage to the great American interior designer and set designer Tony Duquette (who died in 1999) who used recycled artifacts in his extraordinary rooms. The strikingly romantic dining room display is about interpreting history in a way that evokes the past by making it visible; it is an opportunity to transport the visitor back in time.
Visit Coe Hall at 1395 Planting Fields Rd., Oyster Bay. For information, contact (516) 922-9200.
Christmas Past At Cedarmere
Cedarmere, the historic Roslyn home of 19th-century poet and editor William Cullen Bryant, hosts an old-fashioned holiday celebration that looks back on holidays of bygone years this weekend, Dec. 13-14, 12:30-3:30 p.m. Guests can view the house doubly decorated for the holidays, with the parlor decked out as it would have been when Bryant lived there in the 1870s, with a tabletop tree, greens and period ornaments. The Bryants had one of the first Christmas trees in the country, in 1843, when the practice was just being popularized in the U.S.
The “Great Room,” added to the house by Bryant’s grandson in 1903, reflects an Edwardian Christmas, including a larger tree with more extensive decorations and electric lights. Listen to (and join in) old-fashioned music of the season played on the baby grand piano, and hear Christmas poems read by Mr. Bryant himself, as portrayed by actor Frank Hendricks.Reservations are required.
Cedarmere is located at Bryant Ave., Roslyn Harbor. For more information, call (516) 571-8130.
