Christmas & History - A Trip to Old Salem,NC
Don’t forget to check out our video from our trip to Old Salem and our after the trip podcast episode for even more information and fun!
As y’all probably know by now, we travel A LOT! We are always on the lookout for places we can enjoy as a family that will (hopefully) also give us the opportunity for a little discussion and/or education.
With Christmas fast approaching, we wanted to go somewhere historic to learn about different Christmas traditions. It’s always fun to travel around Christmas time to see the different ways people celebrate and decorate. We decided on a place called Old Salem.
Old Salem is in North Carolina. You may be familiar with Winston-Salem. Well, that’s where you’ll find Old Salem. Who would have guessed from the name! Seriously though, you can actually see Winston-Salem skyscrapers from while walking around Old Salem. Talk about the past meeting the present!
Old Salem and many other small settlements around the area were founded by the Moravians, a Christian denomination that predates the Reformation. The Moravians roots begin with Jan (John) Hus who was a Czech reformed who was martyred. They eventually ended up living on Count Zinzendorf’s estate where they began to become more organized and started sending out different groups as missionaries and to plant settlements. For more information on the Moravians history, check out this article by Gotquestions.org.
When we got there, we entered through the visitor center paid for our tickets. It was relatively inexpensive for a paid day trip experience-around $50ish for the three of us. The visitor center had a lot of information and a few exhibits to explore that given a great overview of the history of the people and the area.
Then we headed to the main attraction across the beautiful wooden bridge. It was all decked out for Christmas as you can see in the picture! There were tons of Moravian stars (of course) and beautiful garland everywhere. It seemed to be a popular place to take photos, both professionally and by amateurs like us!
We then went down the stairs and to the main section of Old Salem. It pretty much consists of 2 parallel streets with the connecting streets as well. It reminded us a lot of Colonial Williamsburg, just on a smaller scale. There are a ton of old houses with a variety of different styles and architecture to explore. We also found it interesting that there are many private residences in those old buildings.
As we walked around we noticed there weren’t many signs talking about what we were looking at. There were several to be sure, but not as many as we have seen at most other historic places we have visited. There were a few employees in period dress walking around asking people if they had any questions they could answer for them, which was quite nice. It could be that they try to engage people personally instead of just posting information. Either way we learned while we were there!
Some special things we noticed that were going on because of Christmas were a brass band playing Christmas hymns, the square filled with people at different tables discussing Christmas traditions, and of course the decorations. There were several other things going on as well that were related to Christmas as well that we didn’t quite have time to check out.
We got to check out several historic church buildings and historic residences and learn a bit more about the history of the Moravians and the Old Salem colony.
The last thing we HAVE to mention is that Old Salem is particularly know for its bakery! The line to get into the bakery was almost half a block long. Due to some food restrictions in our family, we didn’t visit the bakery, but it smelled so good!
All in all, Old Salem is a great place to discuss Church history and our faith. And as an added bonus at Christmas time, we get to discuss some of their unique traditions as well as the true reason we celebrate Christmas. We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas day trip! As with all of travels, we created a fun family video about our trip that you can check out here. We also did a review discussion podcast episode right after our trip if you’d like to hear more about our trip and more of our thoughts about Old Salem.
Check out our other travel reviews under the Travel tab on our site menu. And be on the lookout for more videos, posts, and podcasts about traveling with a Christian perspective in the near future!
If you’re interested in learning more about Old Salem or planning your own trip there, here is the link to their website.
Merry Christmas from The Wandering Pilgrims and as always Soli Deo Gloria!