On Friday night we went to see “A Christmas Carol” at the Waveland State Historic Site in Lexington KY. It wasn’t like any other play we have been to before. Instead of sitting in an audience to watch, we followed the actors from room to room watching them perform scenes.

We loved it.

It was such a fun experience and inside such a beautiful old plantation home. The renovations were spot on to the time period. The only downside to it was the number of people also there to join in the fun. There were times when I was unable to see most of what was going on. The play lasted roughly an hour. They started out by guiding us all from the gift shop into the home, where we all sang Christmas carols. After the carols we were taken back outside and around to the front of the house where we were given some history of the Waveland Plantation home.

Once inside the play began. It lasted roughly an hour, where we followed the cast from room to room, sometimes returning to rooms that we had already been in. At one point we headed upstairs for scenes and we just kept thinking how amazing the inside of this home was. It was gorgeous. What an experience!

We didn’t take our phones out, while inside. So we have no pictures of the play or the inside of the building, but we took multiple pictures of the outside.

The house was built in 1845. It was built by Joseph Bryan (1792-1887), one of the nephews of Daniel Boone (historian, poet and frontiersman). The estate was named “Waveland” because of the way the wind blew the fields of grain and help, giving the look of “waving”. At one time there was a racetrack on the property, where there were thoroughbred horse races.

There is still a servants/slave quarters standing behind the home, where they lived after the civil war, renting rooms and earning a wage. Once emancipated after the war, all 13 slaves chose to stay and work for the family. Before emancipation, the slaves were able to build their own homes on the plots of 20 acres that they were responsible for maintaining. This was to save on their travel time to work. They were allowed to keep weapons and make and sell items at a local market where they kept all of the profits. From what we learned, it sounded like they treated their slaves like family, which was so nice to learn. We love learning about the history of the areas that we are visiting, and knew that when we made it to the south, we would be learning more about the sadder parts of our history. It is all very interesting and in 1956 when the land and structures sold to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, they did an amazing job with keeping the preservation of the structures. Even the volunteers dress in time period clothing.

We love going to plays, and getting to have a history lesson and see this plantation house was the cherry on top.