It's another SUNDAY FUNDAY at Ormiston Mansion and Gardens on Sunday December 1.

Our BOOK OF THE DAY is Petunia's Christmas  by Roger DuVoisin.  Petunia, a pet goose, is most distressed. Her friend Charles is being fattened to eat for Christmas dinner! She decides to make and sell Christmas ornaments to buy his freedom.

INSIDE we will make our own ornaments-  to take home or to decorate an inside tree as part of the holiday decorations in the mansion.

OUTSIDE we will put red ornaments on a white spruce tree that we use as our "X" plant in the alphabet garden.  (We call it our XMAS TREE.)

Royal Heritage Members and their guests plan to usher in the 2024 holiday season by attending the RHS’s annual traditional Scottish Wassail held as always at Ormiston Mansion, the society’s 1798 home.  Ormiston will be decorated in all its best holiday finery. This year’s Wassail will be held on Wednesday December 4th, 2024 from 6:30 PM until 9:30 PM. The Ormiston front parlor Christmas tree will dazzle guests as they walk through the front door.  The tree will sport that special Ormiston WOW factor. It will be festooned with red plaid ribbons,  gleaming ornaments and sparkling lights.

The evening festivities will begin in the mansion’s first floor dining room where copious hors d’oeuves and holiday drinks will be served in the mansion’s dining room. After guests have enjoyed these, they will move to the large second-floor reception room where a holiday dinner will be served buffet style with traditional favorites.  In the adjacent President’s Room, an assortment of deserts will be available along with coffee and tea for all to enjoy after their holiday meal. 

Following the Wassail’s buffet dinner, the evening’s highlight is the caroling that occurs when all the guests return to the first-floor front parlor.  In recent years, Jack Williams, long-time RHS member, has played the piano and led the guests in singing well known Christmas carols.   As in past years at the end of the evening, everyone will sing the British hymn, Jerusalem, written by William Blake.  Jerusalem, considered the alternative British national anthem, ends the evening on a high note.

This year the RHS will honor former President, Tom Elsasser.  Tom Elsasser, a graduate of the US Naval Academy with a distinguished Naval career, upon his retirement served for many years as President of the Royal Heritage Society.

Invitations have been mailed to the 2024 membership.  The cost for the Wassail is $55 for members and $60 for their guests.  Please make checks payable to:  Royal Heritage Society.  Mail to:  Susan Jablokov; PO Box 403 Wayne, PA  19087;  information: 215-470-3562; sjablokov@yahoo.com.

RSVP no later than November 30th, 2024.

LET IT SNOW!

Come to Ormiston Mansion on  Sunday January 5 for our first Sunday Funday of 2025. Our featured book will be Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin.  It’s about a boy who loved nature and figured out how to photograph snowflakes.  He made over 2500 photographs of snowflakes and discovered they all had SIX POINTS! This book is required reading in elementary schools in Vermont, where Bentley lived and grew up.

We will take a winter walk down the Boxer Trail, looking for signs of winter and spring. Then we will come inside and learn how to cut and fold our own SIX-POINTED snowflakes!  Text Claire at 215-771-0046 for more info.  Tell us if you are coming so we have enough snacks and materials.  

SPIRALS IN NATURE

You can see examples of Community Gardens all around Philadelphia.  But did you ever think about all the things that need to happen to make a garden dream come true?   Wanda is a little girl who finds an old thorn bush in a vacant lot.  She thinks it might be a rosebush and starts to dream of having her very own rose garden.  See how she gets her neighbors involved in making her dream come true!

We’ll begin by reading the story of Wanda in Wanda’s Roses, and acting it out like a play!  Next we’ll look at examples of  SPIRALS IN NATURE, including roses!   Then we will make tissue paper rosebuds to take home as Valentine’s gifts.   Come join the fun, for adults or kids!