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Celebrate a Colonial Christmas: Guide To Riley's Farm

riley's farm apple
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Celebrating Christmas at Riley's Farm is as old fashion as you can get. Tucked away in the small community of Oak Glen sits a replica of a New England–style estate where costumed 18th-century re-enactors celebrate all month long the advent of the Christ Child's birth. Family traditions begin here on the Colonial Virginian style farm by learning candle dipping, colonial games, and etiquette, Christmas Carols, feasting and dancing.

riley's farm
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Riley's Farm
12261 S. Oak Glen Road
Oak Glen, California 92399
(909) 797-7534
www.rileysfarm.com

riley's farm blacksmith
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Colonial Farm Life Tours
www.rileysfarm.com

Experience life in Colonial America during the holidays by exploring the domestic, farming, and cultural heritage of 18th Century America during the month of December. This tour is a great way for first time visitors to explore the farm by hands on workshops. Guests will experience how the colonists lived in a fun interactive way by staff members like Master Hamilton. Hamilton is the colony's blacksmith who can melt and form metal into a musket ball, horseshoe or tool on site.

Look on the itinerary page for an idea of the workshops you might try like candle dipping or quill and ink. These two workshops may inspire personal gift giving and Christmas card writing.

riley's farm apple
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Hawk's Head Publick House

Whether you take a tour or explore the colonial estate on your own, take a break and fill your bellies at Hawk's Head an 18th century colonial public house. The restaurant is as authentic as you can get for a colonial restaurant in Southern California. Colonial Christmas music gently plays in a room heated only by a fireplace and lit by wax candles inside lanterns. In addition, the dining room has no electricity. Enjoy a cup of hot apple cider, a basket of Sally Lunn Bread, Cider Baked Ham, Open Faced Roast Beef, among other old fashioned bill of fare. Servers are dressed in costume and stay in character throughout your meal which really makes you feel like you have traveled back in time. At the farm, the staff treats their guests likes friends, attentive and polite and the female servers even curtsey as they depart to the kitchen or tend to another table. For fun, guests can also try on a colonial jacket or cloak and hat while waiting for their meals.

Christmas Carol rileys
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Christmas in the Colonies Event

Make your Christmas feast a holiday tradition. This is a one-day only event on December 21 where you can celebrate Christmas by singing carols, 18th Century dancing, tomahawk throwing, a game of nine pins and live Colonial Music. Similar to the Thanksgiving Feast, guests are served a colonial meal with Corn Chowder, Jefferson Chartreuse Cidered Ham, Mt. Vernon Pie (Sausage & chicken pot pie in a gravy of carrots, potatoes & sauce) maple pecan bread pudding hot or cold cider, hot cocoa, or coffee. Wine, beer and hard ciders are also available. This dinner is magical as children, men and women change into costume for the Colonial Christmas celebration.

Although this event is sold out, plan ahead for next year.

rileys-Farm-Dickens11111
(credit: Riley's Farm)

Christmas Carol Vignettes Dinner and Dancing

An old fashion Christmas must have a dose of Charles Dickens. Follow the redemption of miser Ebenezer Scrooge, through vignettes that are played throughout an evening of eating, dancing, and making merry in an 1880′s era Packing Shed. Guests will enjoy live music, community caroling, a hayride around the countryside and festive colonial dancing. This event would make Bob Cratchet smile and Old Fezziwig turn soft. This is truly one of the most unique festive ways to hear the timeless rendition of a Christmas Carol.

Ticket Information

Apple Pie at Riley's Farm
(credit: Michelle Mears-Gerst)

Bakery

Plan for your holiday gatherings and order Riley's popular apple pies. Choose from either a Double Crust Apple Pie or a Crumb Crust Apple Pie. The Crumb Crust is similar to the double crust but has a sweet topping of brown sugar as an added bonus and has mounds of cut apples in a distinctive mountain shape. The top crust is added and about an hour before you arrive and it will be cooked to a gold brown perfection. If you want to take home a whole pie, call a day ahead and place your order.

Riley's Farm Bakery

Michelle Mears-Gerst is a writer in Orange County. She can be followed at @sunnynsocal on Twitter or visited at Sunnynsocal.com.

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