Christmas at the Brontë Parsonage Museum

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum with information about the Christmas activities:

BRANWELL BRONTË’S CHRISTMAS CRACKER! MEANS KIDS GO FREE AT THE BRONTË PARSONAGE

For those who feel the modern Christmas is just too commercial, the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth is offering a taste of Christmas past over the next few weeks. The Parsonage rooms have been decorated in traditional holly and ivy and with children under 16 able to enter the museum completely free of charge every Saturday and Sunday in December, the museum is hoping to encourage families to come and experience the special festive feel of the Parsonage at this special time of year.

On Saturday 13 December, there’ll be some added festive spice with Branwell Brontë’s Christmas Cracker, which involves Branwell visiting the museum, with mulled wine and mince pies on offer. Branwell will be performing his own hilarious version of the Brontë story at 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 2.30pm. There’ll also be a special children’s, Christmas treasure hunt.

The truth is that Christmas for the Brontës was very different because it was before the Victorians got their hands on it. It was a religious festival without a lot of the paraphernalia which has come along since. We think the Brontë Christmas would have been much more civilized and if people are fed up with the modern commercial holiday, they should rediscover a simpler Christmas; come and get away from it all here at the museum. They can always get their Christmas gifts in the museum shop anyway, which has an excellent range of festive presents. (Andrew McCarthy – Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

As well as festive decorations, Branwell, and Christmas gifts, visitors to the museum in December will be able to take part in an exciting new musical project. The Fragmented Orchestra takes place at 24 public sites across the UK, including the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and launches on Friday 12th December. Visitors will be invited to become both player and audience of a vast interactive musical composition extending across the UK.

December is also the last chance to see the museum’s special exhibition for 2008, Emily Brontë: No Coward Soul, which has attracted visitors from around the world. The exhibition is the first time ever that such an extensive range of manuscripts, letters, art works and personal artefacts relating to Emily Brontë has been displayed. The exhibition, which earlier in the year included high profile loans from the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, will only run to the end of the year.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum