A small group of 12 year old girls have been asked to make decorations for, and decorate, a Christmas tree to be displayed in a small manor in southern Virginia. They were thinking of stringing popcorn and making paper chains, but is there anything else to keep in mind? Were feathers, fruit or foil decorations used? Were small presents hung from the tree? We do realize that this typical family's Christmas would have been quite humble.
For additional information, this manor was built in the 1790s, but is currently furnished in the 1830s period.
Thank you, greatly, for your expertise.
In rural Virginia in the 1830s, a family was very unlikely to have put up a Christmas tree. The tradition did not become widespread in the United States until the 1870s (my master's research involved looking at newspapers in a border state after the Civil War, and I recall several articles that were not related to my research about the "German custom" of decorating trees that was spreading from St. Louis).