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Christmas decorations spanning from the Victorian era into the 1960s reveal how different generations celebrated the holidays at the historic Hanley farmhouse outside Jacksonville. While the Christmas tree was decorated with beeswax candles in the 1800s, many families were putting up cutting-edge aluminum trees illuminated by a color-wheel light in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. The two radically different styles of trees — and much more — will be on display during tours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 27, at the Hanley farmhouse, 1053 Hanley Road. Costumed docents will guide people through the rooms of the house and share the rich history of the farm and Hanley family. Tours are $5. In the 1800s, the Christmas tree was often not decorated until Christmas Eve. The parents sometimes put up the tree and hung ornaments after the children had gone to bed, says Tina Reuwsaat, curator of collections for the Southern Oregon Historical Society. "The parents would say the tree was brought by Santa," she says. People clipped metal candleholders to the tree, then inserted the candles. "In the old days without electricity, they would only light the tree when they were in the room or when the children came down in the morning. There was always a bucket of water and a ladle nearby," Reuwsaat says. "It was probably not lit for very long. You can imagine the fire hazard." A Victorian-style tree with beeswax candles adorns the formal parlor of the Hanley farmhouse, which was built in the 1850s. An addition was made to the house in the 1870s. Three generations of the farm family lived on the property before it was given to the Southern Oregon Historical Society in the 1980s to serve as a working farm museum. The tree is hung with German-style ornaments and replicas of lithograph paper and tinsel ornaments Hanley family members would have made themselves. Miniature cornucopias are filled with nuts. Oranges in the room are a reminder of a time when distantly grown fruit was a special treat. "If a child gets an orange in his stocking today, he's probably going to pout," Reuwsaat says. "But back then, it was special. They couldn't just run to Safeway." The parlor is filled with toys of the era, including a wood and leather rocking horse, dolls and tiny, felt zoo animals that may have come from a Noah's ark play set. The Hanley farmhouse family room has decorations from the first half of the 1900s, including a model train circling a Christmas tree next to gifts that include a microscope and Erector Set. The metal construction toy debuted in 1913. In the 1900s, the American Christmas tree ornament manufacturing industry was taking off. Germany lost its hold on the ornament export market to England and America because of World War I and World War II, Reuwsaat says. Some of the glass ball ornaments on the family room tree are clear. With metal in demand for the WWII war effort, silvering for the ornaments was rarely used during that era. The metal caps atop the balls were replaced with paper caps, she says. "If you see a vintage ornament with a paper cap, you know it's from the World War II era," Reuwsaat says. The informal breakfast room contains a mid-century modern aluminum tree. Alternately beloved or despised, fake aluminum trees were used as a symbol for the commercialization of Christmas in the 1965 television special "A Charlie Brown Christmas." At the Hanley farmhouse, vintage bobblehead Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and Pig Pen dolls nod below the aluminum tree. "The room is rather garish," Reuwsaat says. Other stops in the house tour include the formal dining room, where Hanley china, silverware and Christmas-themed napkins are laid out for a holiday feast. For more information about Hanley Farm, see www.hanleyfarm.org or call 541-773-2675. Staff reporter Vickie Aldous can be reached at 541-776-4486 or [email protected] . Follow her at www.twitter.com/VickieAldous .