For a dose of Christmas present you need only drive out to the shopping frenzy of the malls on Route 1. But to get a glimpse of what Christmas in West Windsor was like more than two centuries ago, you should visit the historic Schenck House on Southfield Road, built in 1790 and about as close as you can get to experiencing a colonial New Jersey Christmas.
Upon entering what is now considered the kitchen, a single unpainted rafter to the far right of the room indicates where the original house stopped. To the left, there is a large open fireplace, with pots, pans, and sock driers dangling over its hearth. Stockings were hung by the chimney with care — in the hopes that they would dry by the fire’s warm air. Saint Nicholas wasn’t born until later, in the early 1800s.
The Schenck House docents, members of the Historical Society of West Windsor, include among others longtime West Windsor residents Kay Reed, Joan Parry, and Mary Schenck, whose family bought the 117-acre farm in 1899 and then sold it to the Zaitz family in 1971 — they in turn donated the house, barn, and smokehouse to the township in 1991.
For a holiday open house earlier this month the docents, dressed in traditional long skirts, aprons, and bonnets, decorated the house for Christmas, though more for a festive feel than historical accuracy. On the fireplace mantle were hand-strung garlands of evergreen, popcorn, and pinecones. Authentic chamber pots upstairs would have saved you from an icy cold trip to the outhouse on Christmas morning; old washtubs in the barn, warmed by kettle-boiled water, wouldn’t have stayed that way for long. Magnolia leaves and cranberries accented the rooms.
Christmas decorations in the 1700s consisted almost entirely of what could be gathered from nature, including arrangements and wreaths made from evergreen branches and whatever foliage still had colorful berries at the time. The presence of mistletoe at Christmas stems from an old pagan belief that the plant has the power to bring fertility and marriage to those who kiss underneath it. It was usually hung, but could also be used by little boys to chase around little girls.
Excited little boys and girls — that’s one element of the Christmas celebration that has endured to the present.
