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Last year our Back to Bethlehem-themed ward Christmas social was so much fun and such a hit we decided to keep it going with another era-themed party. Since we were just wrapping up the study of the Doctrine & Covenants, we thought it would be fun to celebrate Christmas- pioneer style. A friend of mine had done this “Christmas in Nauvoo” theme with her ward the year prior it looked so great she inspired me to do the same. I couldn’t find a lot of resources online for inspiration, so I thought I’d share what we did to give you a starting point. It’s always helpful to hear how someone else did it (in my experience). I’ll break it all down for you from our decorations, activities, food and the program for this old fashioned 1800s Christmas.

“A Pioneer Christmas” Decorations

I’ll admit, we were a little tired and burnt out from our Back to Bethlehem, and wanted to keep this year much more simple this year. That being said, I think it still turned out very nice. I do wish I had done a few things differently, so I’ll share all about that! We leaned into the “brick” aesthetic as Nauvoo was known for their brick buildings. By the early 1840s, Nauvoo reportedly had hundreds of brick structures — which was unusual for a frontier city and helped give it a more established, “Eastern” feel compared to many Midwestern settlements at the time. I used photos from my friend’s decorations as well to pull it all together. Unfortunately, she does not have a blog post about it that I can point you to.

Gym & Stage Decor

Let’s start with the cultural hall church gym: In our attempt to turn the church gym into the Nauvoo Mansion House our main decorations here were the stage decor that we build out of cardboard and centerpieces for the tables. I always love to string Christmas lights, but it’s a big project and after doing it last year I decided everyone needed a break from that.

To create the stage decor we started with large sheets of cardboard that we cut into the shape of a building. We duct taped the different pieces together on the back side. We then covered the cardboard with brick-patterned backdrops, and again duct taped it to the back. I ordered 2 of the backdrops, which was plenty for our stage decor, but I wish I had ordered like 6 of them to be able to cover more of the gym. It’s such a simple and cost effective way to cover up those ugly gym walls, pads, or accordion doors.

We then used aluminum foil for the windows and poster board for the doors. I used some spray on snow along the edges of the windows and this cotton type snow for the roof and the stage floor. The cotton type snow was also helpful to have to throw around corners of the gym around Christmas trees and things. For finishing touches I added small wreaths with tacs to the “doors” and little Christmas trees to the sides with more “snow”. The wreaths and trees came from my personal Christmas decor. We then closed the stage curtains so that only the brick building was showing. Trying to figure out how to get it to stand upright was the biggest challenge. We ended up (and I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of this) punching holes on each end, and one in the middle. We then stapled a little piece of wood behind the holes and drilled a hole in it to match up with the hole in the building. Last we strung heavy gauge fishing line though the hole and tied it to hooks we already had on our stage ceiling. The wood was just their to reinforce so that the whole wouldn’t rip under the weight of being hung. We put a few stack of chairs behind it to keep it from swaying around.

The rest of the gym was pretty simple with a few notable elements. I used the brick background to cover the most offensive parts of the gym (the pads underneath the basketball hoops). Again, I wish I had ordered so much more! It would have been a quick, inexpensive and easy way to further transform the gym. We also had some cardboard windows that I had actually saved for like 10 years from our Polar Express Party that I put up as well.

For the tables we used our standard black tablecloths that the relief society has and I ordered red chiffon table runners similar to these (the ones I ordered don’t seem to be available anymore in red buthere is the link). I got a 20 pack. For the centerpieces we decided to go with a lantern and greenery theme. The lanterns we gathered up from members of the ward, and the greenery was mostly cut off fresh pine and cedar trees up in the mountains when we went Christmas tree cutting. The dollar tree always has lanterns around Christmas time as well, but if yours is like mine, they aren’t a dollar anymore! We used electric candles inside our lanterns, you honestly can not have too many electric candles for this event in my opinion. And the big tall ones would be great for the food tables or the hallways!

The last item of note for our gym decor is our huge, amazing Nauvoo temple painting! A member of the ward actually painted this, and it was a highlight for sure! We strung Christmas lights around it, and I’m not sure why I don’t have a picture of it all lit up?

Oh one more thing, a member of the ward also had a cool map of Nauvoo from this time period, we displayed that at the entrance to the gym. I also hung up some wreaths and garland, because you can never go wrong with that. It just felt classic to me.

Oh and one last thing about the gym- for real this time. We had a few old fashioned Christmas trees floating around with classic decorations like popcorn garlands, stick stars, and dried oranges and cranberries. I also added wreaths and garlands to all the doors.

Hallway & Classroom Decor

Moving on to the hallways and classrooms, we used this part of the building for our activity portion of the evening, which I will get into later. But for now I can show you how we decorated it. I wanted to transform the hallways into the streets of Nauvoo. Again I was trying to keep things simple compared to last year, but I think it still turned out pretty great! We ran this cobblestone runner along the hallway, taping it with painters tape along the edges. We actually had it left over from the Back to Bethlehem and it holds up better than you think it would (at least better than I expected). Here’s a cheaper option but I can’t speak to its durability. We had one 100 foot roll and it was pretty much the perfect length to cover the back hallway. I wish I had had 200 feet and I think we could have gotten the two side hallways as well. I then lined the hallways with left over boughs that we hadn’t used for our centerpieces along with some electric candles. I think it made for a festive scene! I finished it off by winding some Christmas lights down the hall. Somehow I didn’t seem to get much of a picture of that- probably because I was frantically throwing it all down 30 minutes before it was schedule to start! Here’s a picture of the cobblestone path before I added the greenery, candles and lights. And you can get a better idea of the finished result in my video.

Old Fashioned Shoppe Sign DIY

My crowning achievement for this event (every event I have something I am the most proud of) were the old fashioned store signs I made for our “Nauvoo Shops”. I had this idea in my head, and I found this inspo picture (below) and somehow I wanted to make this work.

So with the help of my activities co chair helping me brainstorm I think we pretty much nailed it:

Supplies You’ll Need

• Cardboard (or poster board?)
• Wood contact paper
• Fishing line
• Wreath hooks (I got two of these 2 packs so we had four total)
• Strong magnets (I got two of these 6 packs so we had 12 total)

Directions

1. First I cut rectangles the size I wanted the signs out of cardboard paper. I let the width of the contact paper guide me to make sure I had enough to cover it and fold over the sides.
2. Next I wrapped the cardboard in the contact paper. You can put a slit in the corners to cover it better.
3. Next I cut the words I needed out of white vinyl on my cricut. I ended up using the font Blackadder ITC.
4. I applied the words on to the signs and then punched two holes with a hole puncher near the top for the fishing line.
5. I adhered the adhesive magnets on the straight edge of the wreath hanger (the part that’s meant to go over the top of the door)
6. Then I tied fishing line through the holes in the sign and around the wreath hanger. It was a bugger to get them even. And then, voila! Magnetic door sign! This method depends on the fact that you have magnetic door frames in your church building. Which we do (even though my husband tried to tell me it wasn’t going to work- it totally did!)

I suggest bringing a magnet to the church building ahead of time to make sure your door frames are magnetic. I will say they were not the sturdiest and could easily be knocked off if someone tried, so I was concerned about that. But in the end we didn’t have any trouble with them staying up! And I figured if they did fall down it just took a second to pop it back up.

Shopping List

Here’s a list (while not comprehensive) of some of the main items I purchased for our Christmas in Nauvoo event.

• Brick background
• Spray on snow
• Cotton fake snow
• Red table runners
• Electric candles
• Wood contact paper
• Cardboard
• Wreath hooks
• Magnets
• Fishing line
• Bonnets (I got a few of these multi bonnet packs for people who wanted to wear one but didn’t come with anything).

This post has waxed a bit long, so in the interest of not wanting to overwhelm you I will cover food, activities, the program in this post! And if you’re looking for more ideas for your ward Christmas party check out our Whoville party, Nativity party, Polar Express party and our Back to Bethlehem Night.