CHRISTMAS 1900 AT THE GLENN HOUSE

Visitors to the Glenn House these days will find the Victorian home decked out as if the year were 1900 and a family was preparing to welcome holiday guests.

The outside rails, roofs and fencing are festooned with many layers of roped greenery and red bows. Inside the table is set for an elegant party, and six very different Christmas trees make the house a wonderland of twinkling lights and handmade ornaments.

The Glenn House at 325 F. Spanish will be open from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons through the New Year, including New Year's Day.

Because of the Christmas Parade of Lights, special hours today are 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m., and admission is free.

Barbara Port and her husband, Bill, both members of the Cape Girardeau Historical Association, decorated the house. They moved out some of the exhibits that make the house a teaching museum during the rest of the year and replaced them with holiday finery that reflects the era.

While acknowledging that artificial decorations in some cases stand in for those Victorians would have used, Barbara Port said, "We tried to decorate with things that would have been available to a family in 1900."

The Christmas trees include a white feather tree decorated with red roses in the bay window on the stairwell and a poinsettia tree in the formal parlor.

The library holds the traditional cedar tree donated by B.W. Harrison. Because the branches are prickly and lightweight, it is decorated primarily with bows and gold braid.

In the kitchen is a tree hung with cookies and doughnuts.

The tree in the children's room has handpainted wooden ornaments.

In the master bedroom is a silver, gold and white tree decorated with the original candles.

On yet another tree in the "Ship Bedroom" are antique ornaments dating to 1900.

Candles will be found throughout the house.

New outside this year are illuminated concrete urns donated by Clarence Lee Shirrell.

The Ports have brought in some of their own heirlooms to supplement the Victoriana, including her grandmother's gold band Haviland china dating to the 1880s and a silver tea service made in the 1860s.

The biggest difference between Christmas in Victorian Cape Girardeau and today is the way we entertain, Port said. "Parties were in their homes. They did not go out to public events. They didn't have auditoriums, theaters and traveling entertainers.

"... They entertained each other."