Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues, we're coming up on 816, and it is a chilly 27, actually feels like it's about 14 outside. Let's welcome in Kate Grinstaff from the Seward House Museum, Kate, good morning, how are you this morning?
Kate Grindstaff: Good morning, Paul, I'm great, how are you?
Paul Szmal: Good, good, and we have some fun stuff to talk about that is coming to the Seward House Museum as we head through the month of November and into the holiday season. Let's start with what's happening this Saturday.
Kate Grindstaff: Yes, so we have a new program, it's called Okaramia, and that's going to be this Saturday from 4 to 5.30 at the Seward House Museum, and this event is brand new, and it was created to honor the memory of Rebecca Carr, who was an Auburnian and a very gifted soprano opera singer. She recently passed away, but she has supported the museum in the past, and this is our tribute to her. So to honor her legacy, the inaugural concert will feature soprano Kara Goodrich, one of Rebecca's former students and a rising star of the opera world, and she will be accompanied by the acclaimed pianist Richard Robb. So tickets are $40, we only have a few left, so please purchase yours through our website today, which is SewardHouse.org, and tickets will also include a champagne toast to Rebecca. This sounds like it's going to be a wonderful program, and it's in the drawing room, so it's a very intimate setting.
Paul Szmal: Definitely, yes. Alright. It should be very special. I know one of the big events that you have every year is the Holiday Traditions Open House, and that is on the docket again for this year.
Kate Grindstaff: Yes, it is. So just like many other organizations in the town of Auburn, we will have some special programming on December 14th for the Holiday Traditions Open House, and the house will be completely decorated at that point with all of our Victorian Christmas decorations, and then it will be open to the community for people to walk through. This will be more than just what people see for First Fridays. They will be able to see the entire house, and they will get to walk through the entire thing that is full of Victorian decor. So we will also have staff and volunteers that will be in each room giving a bit of an interpretation, and we'll also have some live music going on throughout the event in the drawing room as well, so it's a very nice vibe. And this is completely free, it's open to the public, and it is from noon to four o'clock.
Paul Szmal: Now we're used to Christmas lights on the outside, some really crazy light displays this time of year in some locations for the holidays, and then on the inside we're used to the Christmas decorations of the modern era. How does the Victorian decoration differ from that?
Kate Grindstaff: Yeah, so we actually get a lot of our modern Christmas traditions from the Victorian era. So for example, that's when the symbol of the Christmas tree with ornaments and presents under it, that's when that started. So it's a bit similar to what we recognize now in our common culture, however we have a lot more natural decor, so a lot of plants, a lot of flowers, nuts, pine cones, things like that, and that would be covering the entire house. So it's very similar in terms of how you would picture Christmas decor, it's just a lot more natural.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, because of course in that era that's all they had. Of course. Yeah, none of the modern day trappings were there, but makes for an interesting contrast to be able to take that walk back in time through the Seward House and see what it looked like in the holidays back in that period.
Kate Grindstaff: Yes. The candlelight tours are going to be underway through the month of December as well, and this is again another holiday themed event that the Seward House has.
Paul Szmal: Yes, this is one of our most popular events, and those tours are on sale now through our website, and we're going to be offering them again on various different nights, so throughout the entire month of December on the weekends. So December 5th and 6th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and then 18th, 19th, and 20th, and then our season will end shortly after that, but the candlelight Christmas tours are again one of our most popular events. This is a living history performance where we have staff and volunteers completely decked out in Victorian garb, and we have an hour-long performance that we do twice a night where visitors come in, they meet the Seward family, they hear more about Victorian Christmas traditions, and also the Seward's Christmas history, and then of course there is that question of will Mr. Seward make it home for Christmas, and that is the big question throughout the entire event. We do have some changes this year, so some changes to the script, so that will be exciting, and then we will sing Christmas carols at the end of each of these events around our Steinway piano, which has just gotten retuned, so we're very excited to use that again.
Paul Szmal: Oh, that sounds like it's going to be a good time. Yep, yes. Will there be a first Friday in December, or does that take the month of December off for holiday shopping season?
Kate Grindstaff: Yeah, we do not have a first Friday in December, because that first week is usually either when the holiday traditions fall, or it's when we are decorating the house, so we do not have one that month.
Paul Szmal: Okay. If people want to find out more information about the Seward House Museum, including the events that we've talked about, how do they do that?
Kate Grindstaff: They can go to SewardHouse.org, and then they can click on our events page, and they can click on any event they would like on that page, and that will take them to an event right where they can purchase actual tickets. And we're getting ready to, believe it or not, it feels like it's coming sooner than expected to turn into a new year, to 2026. Anything new on the docket that you're in the planning stages for for the new year?
Paul Szmal: Yes. So we will be closing again in January and February as usual, and then reopening again to the public in March of 2026 for the rest of the season. And we're very excited. We're going to be curating a new exhibit over our break, so I'm not sure if it's officially been announced yet, so I won't say what the topic is, but it's going to be a brand new topic where our Rooted in Reform exhibit is currently. So that story where we were discussing the family's involvement with prison reform, specifically within the Auburn prison system of the 19th century, and that space is going to be reimagined into another really, really exciting and timely topic. And that will be opening up, of course, in the spring to the public. So if anybody would like to see a Rooted in Reform, that will be up through the rest of December and November, but then we will be taking that exhibit down afterwards.
Paul Szmal: All right. Something to look forward to as we head into the start of the new season, if you will, for the Seward House in March of 2026. Kate, as always, thank you for joining us. And again, you can find out more information at SewardHouse.org. Have a great Thanksgiving.
Kate Grindstaff: All right. Thank you, too, Paul. It is 825 on FLX Morning.
