Left to Right Kitty Rabb, Ginger Mcleod, and Brenda Miller with the Anemone Garden Club of Winnsboro takes one final look at their decorations before open house.

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Kerry Matthews song carols for those in attendance at the Museum's Christmas Open House.

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The front doors of the museum were decorated by Gwen Harden, Nancy Frazier, and Martha Ladd with the Winnsboro Garden Club.

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The upstairs of the museum featured The Majolica and Silver Collection from Tim Wilkes' private collection. The silver collection included pieces from the Silver Services from the Country House of Adolf Hitler and Eva Bran, along with Victorian Sterling wire eggs from 1800.

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WINNSBORO — Antiques, artwork and old-fashioned Christmas sing-a-longs were part of the Fairfield County Museum’s annual Christmas Open House this year. The county’s garden clubs decorated the facility with appropriate trappings of the holiday season.

A highlight of the event was a mini-concert by antique piano expert Tom Strange who performed on the museum’s 1854 Newman and Brothers piano. Strange, an authority on antique square pianos, realized his recent purchase of an 1834 piano was the companion instrument to the Museum’s 1854 Newman and Brothers piano, both from the Lyles family plantation. In addition to playing, he talked about the history of the square parlor pianos of the 19th century.

New display space on the second floor was broken in by a collection of Tim Wilkes’s Victorian silver and majolica ceramics. Wilkes grew up in Blackstock and Winnsboro and said he began collecting antiques when he was in his 20s, amassing several warehouses full of antiques, art and jewelry.

Other musical performances included those by the Johnson Family’s string and pipes quartet, Brian Ogburn’s bagpipes, Kerry Matthews’ soprano tones, and the contemporary sounds of Jeanie Roundy, Lynn Douglass, Sue Miller, and others who make up the “Halfway There” performers.

The Fairfield Historical Society provided refreshments.