The Morse Museum will kick off the holiday season with its first-ever Thanksgiving Weekend Open House. Beginning Friday, November 29, at 9:30 a.m., the Museum will be free all weekend to launch the season’s festive schedule of free events on Friday nights, including live music, tours, and an art demonstration.
For five consecutive Friday evenings during the holidays (November 29 through December 27), visitors can enjoy not only free admission from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. but live music from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. In addition, at 7 p.m. on December 6, 13, and 20, the Morse will offer evening tours of the permanent exhibition Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall. Participation in these tours is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. A special night of family programming on December 13 includes a tour of selected galleries and a resin casting demonstration with a free take-home art activity for participants.
On Thursday, December 5, The Morse Museum and the City of Winter Park will present the 41st annual Christmas in the Park. At this free event in downtown Winter Park—always a highlight of the holidays—the Morse lights up nine Tiffany windows in Central Park and sponsors the Bach Festival Choir, Youth Choir, and Brass Ensemble in an outdoor concert. Admission to the Museum is also free on Tuesday, December 24, during the Morse’s Christmas Eve Open House, a long-standing tradition.
The complete schedule of free holiday events, programs, and tours at The Morse Museum
November 29–December 1
Thanksgiving Weekend Open House. Friday, 9:30 a.m.–8 p.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m.–4 p.m.
November 29
Live music by the Harpist Bizarre Quartet (bass, flute, guitar, and harp), 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
December 5
41st Annual Christmas in the Park, downtown Winter Park, 6:15 p.m.–8:30 p.m.
December 6
Victoria Lynn Schultz (harp), 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
Evening tour of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall, 7 p.m.
December 13
Beautiful Music Chamber Quartet (cello, flute, viola, and violin), 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
Family tour of selected galleries, 5:15 p.m.
Resin casting demonstration with artist Chris Prueitt, 6 p.m.
Evening tour of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall, 7 p.m.
December 20
Beautiful Music Three Flutes Only, 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
Evening tour of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall, 7 p.m.
December 24
Christmas Eve Open House, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m.
Live music by the Raintree Chamber Players, 1 p.m.–4 p.m.
December 27
Beautiful Music Jazz Quartet (bass, flute, guitar, and trumpet), 5 p.m.–8 p.m.
The Morse Museum houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany. These works include the chapel interior he designed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago as well as surviving art and architectural elements from Laurelton Hall, his grand Long Island estate.
New exhibitions include Rare and Remarkable—Art Pottery of Louis Comfort Tiffany, which opened October 15. The exhibition is drawn from the Morse Museum’s collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s pottery, the largest public collection in the world. Telling a deeper story of ceramics in America during the early 1900s, the Tiffany pottery show is augmented by the Museum’s major exhibition Earth into Art—The Flowering of American Art Pottery, which provides the context of the turn-of-the-century American art pottery craze.
Museum hours from November through April are 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday; 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday; and l p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Regular admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $1 for students, and free for children under 12. All visitors receive free admission from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Fridays from November through April. For more information, consult the Museum’s website, morsemuseum.org.
