Surrounded by bows, string, tinsel and holiday ornaments, Milledgeville resident Margaret Martin carefully crafted a finger-sized rose that will be on display inside the Old Governor’s Mansion for the holiday season this year.

“I’ve been doing this for several years. We do something different every year. The roses are going into a small Christmas tree,” Martin said.

Martin, a friend of Dr. Harriett Whipple, Professor Emerita of Biology at Georgia College & State University, was at the Old Governor’s Mansion Monday afternoon as one of more than 20 volunteers helping to decorate the mansion for the holidays.

Between 30 to 50 volunteers have been working to decorate the mansion since Nov. 21, according to Jim Turner, director of the Old Governor’s Mansion.

“We started this the first year after the restoration. We’d decorated before, but never on this scale,” Turner said Monday. “I’m very, very grateful for the outpouring of community and university support. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to accomplish what we have done so far.”

The Old Governor’s Mansion is owned by GCSU and is one of the premiere attractions in Central Georgia during the holiday season.

For the past several years, evening candlelight tours have been offered to mansion visitors to provide a feel of what life was like back when the 170-year-old Greek Revival mansion housed some of the state’s most important political figures, according to Turner.

“Candlelight tours start this Saturday, on the sixth,” Turner said. “We will be featuring a candlelight tour on Dec. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m.; Dec. 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. and Dec. 18 from 6 to 8 p.m.”

Cost for the tours are $7 for pre-booked parties of five people or more, $10 for adult walk-ins and $2 for students, according to Turner.

“They are extremely popular. You see the house as it would have been in the 19th century,” Turner said. “You really get the ambiance and the feel of an Antebellum home. The governors would entertain in the evenings and there were no electric lights, only candlelight.”

As the mansion prepares for its annual candlelight tours, decorations from individuals such as Martin and others are continuing to be placed around the mansion in keeping with the “Antebellum Christmas” theme that will run from Dec. 6-24 at the mansion.

Dixie Evans is retired from GCSU and has been working with the mansion’s volunteer holiday decoration team for her second time this year.

“It’s great. We’ve been making bows and putting bows on chairs,” Evans said.

One of the larger decorations and highlights of the mansion during the holiday season this year is a 20-foot tall faux evergreen that stands majestically in the rotunda of the mansion.

Student volunteers with Whipple’s biology classes and community members spent much of Monday putting the final decorations on the tree, which contains more than 56,000 crystal icicles and more than 1,800 individual lights.

“I probably would have been here anyway because I’ve been involved with the mansion for a couple of years now,” GCSU freshman Ross Sheppard said. “It’s very worthwhile. I really like history a lot, especially the mansion. There a lot of people who drive by here and don’t ever come inside. If this was just regular Christmas decorating it wouldn’t be as fun.”

Robert Lemmon with mansion operations and maintenance has been assisting with placement of wreaths, ornaments and other miscellaneous decorations as the mansion readies for its first public appearance this weekend.

“We’re way ahead and looking good compared to other years. This is the second year we’ve had the large tree but everything is different this year,” Lemmon said.

The Old Governor’s Mansion will hold its Antebellum Christmas from Dec. 6 - 24.

Candlelight tours will take place Dec. 6, Dec. 13 and Dec. 18 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Cost is $10 general admission, $7 for seniors and $20 for students.

For more information contact the Old Governor’s Mansion at (478) 445-4545.

The next notable event for the Old Governor’s Mansion will be a hosting of “Abraham Lincoln: Self Made in America,” an exhibit courtesy of the Lincoln Presidential Library that highlights Lincoln’s life and times in honor of his 200th birthday.

The exhibit will be on display from Dec. 19 through Jan. 16 in the education building of the Old Governor’s Mansion located on the Georgia College

campus.