Holiday Open House at the Museum of East Tennessee History

Cookies and apple cider will warm the day at the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Holiday Open House on Saturday, December 14, from 11 a.m.- 3 p.m.

Activities include visits by local authors, storytelling, shop discounts, sale of handmade items, free ornament and craft making for the kids, and holiday refreshments. Holiday and traditional musical performances by the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club will harken in the Christmas spirit. Local crafters Karen Micheletta, David and Becky Weaver, and Aviary Broom Co., will be on hand demonstrating a variety of crafts and offering handmade items made from vintage quilts, baskets, chair caning, and brooms.

Visitors are invited to browse the ETHS Museum Store for a 10 percent discount on a great selection of traditional gifts, history books, and children's items. The discount is good for this day only. Looking for the gift that gives all year? Pick up a gift membership and your loved ones will receive publications and special benefits throughout the year. 

Museum admission is free for the day. On display is a beautifully hand-carved crèche made in Germany and brought to East Tennessee by the immigrant Fickey family in 1883. Family legend indicates that it had origins in the Fickey’s home district of Erzgebirge some 150 years before being brought to this country.

Other exhibits currently on view include the feature exhibition “It’ll Tickle Yore Innards!”; A Hillbilly History of Mountain Dew, an East Tennessee Streetscape and Corner Drug Store, and Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee, a look at 300 years of history, from the Cherokee to the 1982 World’s Fair.

Holiday Open House events are free and open to the public from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Museum of East Tennessee is located at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville. For more information, visit www.eastTNhistory.org or call 865-215-8824.