“DID THE MILLSES SPEND CHRISTMAS HERE?”

Yes. A 1903 newspaper account tells that the Millses invited the people of Staatsburg to the mansion that Christmas Eve to enjoy the sight of their Christmas decorations. The family seems to have gathered here regularly for Christmas until the 1920s. After Mrs. Mills died in 1920, Mr. Mills sometimes spent Christmas at the Palm Beach, Florida home of his daughter, Gladys Mills Phipps.

“DID THE MILLSES DECORATE THEIR HOUSE JUST LIKE THIS?”

We don’t know exactly what their Christmas decorations were like; the museum has no historic photographs of the mansion decorated for the holidays. A neighbor of the family later recalled there once being poinsettias in the house, and large bowls of holly. One of the Millses’ grandchildren, the ninth Earl of Granard, recalled that the family had a Christmas tree in his grandmother’s boudoir, where the family exchanged their Christmas presents. When he saw a photograph of a Christmas tree that site personnel had installed in the stairwell of the Grand Staircase in 1988, he commented that the family had had a tree there as well.

“ARE THESE THE MILLSES’ OWN DECORATIONS?”

No. The family left none of its holiday decorations behind when the mansion was given to the State.

The Christmas decorations on display were made and acquired by a partnership of site staff and the Friends of Mills Mansion, and have been selected as typical of those used by wealthy families during the Gilded Age period.

“WOULD THE DECORATIONS HAVE REALLY BEEN THIS ELABORATE?”

They would have been abundant and extremely rich. Great houses like this one were built not merely for living in but also to be the setting for elaborate Society entertaining. People like the Millses entertained frequently, and on a grand scale. At Christmas time, a time associated with good fellowship and generosity, upper-class families would commonly decorate their houses lavishly, for the enjoyment of their guests as well as themselves.