Shepherd University history professor Sally Brasher teaches five-year-old Addie Shaw, left, and four-year-old Adeliza Broomall how to decorate a Yule Log at the Holiday Open House on Saturday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — This past Saturday afternoon, the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War welcomed community members and tourists alike to step into the past, with its annual Holiday Open House.

While in previous years, the Holiday Open House has taken the same route, of celebrating the season with a Civil War encampment in the center’s backyard, this year’s event took a family-friendly turn, according to George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War Director James Broomall.

“This year, there were two layers that were different. The one is, rather than just doing the Civil War as a theme, we decided to do a series of history themes. So, the Yule Log goes back several centuries, but carried through in some different iterations through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The other layer is that we wanted to have more programming that interfaced with families. Part of that, was because some of our students are secondary education majors. We also have a volunteer who is very interested in children’s education, so we were trying to think of how we wanted to sculpt this and the type of programs we wanted to create,” Broomall said. “That’s how we sort of recrafted it. Every year we try to do something a little differently, but this year it’s definitely a rapid shift, in terms of focus and intended outcomes.”

Broomall noted the idea for taking a family-centric approach to the celebration was first suggested by Christmas in Shepherdstown’s organizers.

“We met with Steve [Pearson] and Jenny [Haynes] in town, and they suggested we do some more kid-friendly programming, as they’re trying to rethink Christmas in Shepherdstown — there’s a lot more families coming in for the festivities,” Broomall said, mentioning this year’s theme ended up centering around historical toy and craft creation. “I think it was a pretty smart idea to build some demonstrations around that concept.”

A trio of reenactors welcome passersby into the Holiday Open House at the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War on Saturday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

The Holiday Open House ended up featuring a number of reenactors in civilian and military garb, ranging in time from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, who welcomed attendees into the center, explained the history behind various artifacts and demonstrated historically relevant skills, such as spinning wool. Most of these reenactors were Shepherd University alumni or current students, who volunteered their time simply for the joy of sharing their love of history with the public.

“I went to school here!” said Shepherd University alumna Katlin McCreery, who drove up to volunteer her time, demonstrating how to make corn husk dolls, on behalf of her employer, the Frontier Culture Museum in Stanton, Va. “We don’t think about making our toys anymore.”

A number of Shepherd University Department of History faculty, other than Broomall, were also on hand to lend their professional expertise to the event. For European history professor Sally Brasher, helping with this year’s Holiday Open House was particularly enjoyable, due to the inclusion of one of her favorite Christmastime traditions originating in Europe.

“We’re doing a Yule Log! It’s kind of difficult to explain,” Brasher said, indicating this difficulty made having the opportunity to view the Yule Log demonstration all the more valuable. “We’re teaching children to decorate Yule Logs in a kind of traditional way, with dried fruit and herbs and greenery and pine cones. Then, we’ll talk about the tradition of the Yule Log through the ages and burn the logs on the fire back behind the building.

“The burning of the Yule Log is a pre-Christian tradition, where to celebrate the Winter Solstice they would take a whole tree and stick it on the hearth, and for as long as it would burn, they’d just move it further into the hearth every day. But then they shrunk it to cutting the tree into separate logs, like we have here today,” Brasher said, mentioning her own family practiced this tradition when she was a child. “When the church decided to make the celebration of Christmas on the Winter Solstice, they just sort of changed the tradition to a Christian tradition — instead of celebrating the solstice, they were celebrating the brightness of Christ.

Frontier Culture Museum in Stanton, Va. employee Katlin McCreery demonstrates how to make corn husk dolls in the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War on Saturday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

“It originated in Scandinavian and northern Europe, but then sort of spread,” Brasher said. “Eventually, under Christianity in the Middle Ages, kids decorated it, and the idea was you decorate it, you burn it and then it burns away all of your bad deeds so you can start over afresh. And they would take one stick up from the Yule Log and burn it for the next year.

“When it comes to America and Appalachia, they incorporated it into their traditions,” Brasher said. “According to oral traditions, in the South on plantations, they would burn it and as long as the Yule Log burned, they wouldn’t have to work. So slaves would try to get a really wet log [so it would burn as slowly as possible], but the slave owners would burn the log from both ends, so it would burn twice as quickly.”

Shepherd University public history major Belle Erickson spins wool at the Holiday Open House in the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War on Saturday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

Shepherd University alumnus and reenactor Michael Galloway discusses some of the Civil War artifacts in the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War with Patty McGovern, of Hedgesvile, on Saturday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston