MIDDLETOWN—The public has a chance to enjoy the Middletown Garden Club’s enchanting decorations in Morrison Hall. The mansion was open to the public Dec. 5-6 and will be again Dec. 12-13. Garden Club member Linda Mulligan has been participating for three years. “It’s just really fun to work on and it’s beautiful when it’s all done.”
Mulligan says the club decides on a theme, which this year is “The Mansion is All Aglow with Victorian Elegance.” A committee is assigned to each room which decides how to fit the theme. Several heavily-laden Christmas trees anchor the decorations. She said most tree decorations are stored in the mansion from year to year. But many are hand-made in line with the theme.
Although club members begin working on the event in September, they have just one day to decorate. “We put this all together in one day and take it down in one day,” Mulligan said.
Visitors can wander through the grand mansion’s five first-floor rooms. The foyer is filled with a puppet theater, a mansion doll house, and a child-size table and chairs set up for tea. The salon is a “A Lady’s Parlor,” the music room off the foyer, “Entertainment in the Music Room,” displays musical instruments in heavy paperboard.
In the dining room, luxurious holiday table settings, ornament balls and ribbons in blue surround the Christmas tree. The library is decorated as an elegant Victorian gentleman’s room.
Donations are accepted for the Peter Alberghini Inspirational Scholarship. Alberghini, a long-time SUNY Orange employee and advocate for Orange County residents through education, civic work, and mental health programs, originated the Holiday Open House as a way for the local community to enjoy Morrison Hall.
SUNY Orange-Middletown, the SUNY Orange Foundation, and the Middletown Garden Club sponsored the open house.
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