Evening Candlelight Tours - Van Cortlandt Manor and Sunnyside - Croton-on-Hudson and Tarrytown, New York

Join Historic Hudson Valley for two evening candlelight tours held throughout December.

Van Cortlandt Manor - Experience a late 18th-century celebration of "Twelfth Night." The candlelit festivities begin with a visit to the home of one of the wealthiest families of the post-Revolutionary era. Decorations made of holiday greens and fruit adorn windowsills and mantles, live music is performed in the parlor, and the tables set with Van Cortlandt family china are laden with intriguing 18th-century desserts. A stroll through the orchard, lit by candle-lanterns, takes visitors to the tenant house to meet the Lord of Misrule. As visitors approach the ferry house, a celebration is under way, and guests dance to the lively strains of the fiddler and drink a toast to the season.

Washington Irving's Sunnyside - Candlelight tours bring an 1850s Christmas to life. You'll be escorted down a lantern-lit path to the cottage decorated with holly, evergreens, and real candles. Excerpts from Irving's Christmas tales and family letters are the theme of the evening. You'll also be invited to join in song while a costumed guide accompanies you on the 1830s piano. The tour concludes in the kitchen yard, where hot cider is served beside a roaring fire.