Saturday Dec 5th, Candlelight Tours at Peter Wentz Farmstead

 

This Saturday December 5th

Visit the Peter Wentz Farmstead for their annual Candlelight Tours

beginning at 3pm

Highlights for this year include:
- Visit with Belsnickel (Pennsylvania German for Saint Nicholas in furs) from 3-6pm
- Candles lit at dusk
- Tours of the historic house
- 18th century tunes played on various instruments by musician Mark Carroll
- Demonstrations of some common colonial crafts and toys & games
- Seasonal food and drink being prepared on the hearth in the summer kitchen
- Our colonial neighbors making toasts and firing muskets in the joy of the season
- Visit with the animals in the barn and sheepfold
- Museum shop open & light refreshments available for purchase

Peter Wentz Farmstead is a historical German American farm which has been continuously farmed since 1744.

 It is located in Worcester Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania 

Address:  2030 Shearer Rd, Lansdale, PA 19446

 

 

The Belsnickel — which roughly translates as "Nicholas in furs" — came to Pennsylvania with settlers

from western Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries. Kristkindel visited children with gifts  

The Belsnickel, however, was Santa gone rogue.

Here's an explanation from an 1890s guide for Pennsylvania Germans learning English 

(hence the short, simple sentences):

In the evening the Kristkindel goes around to the houses and distributes Christmas presents. 

The children await him. Sometimes Belsnickel comes and frightens them. He throws chestnuts around, 

and when the children run to pick them up, he hits them with a whip.

A. R. Horne, Pennsylvania German Manual for Pronouncing, Speaking, and Writing English 

(Allentown: National Educator Print, 1896), p. 71.