Visitors will experience a frontier Christmas from 6:309 p.m. Dec. 9-10 when the National Ranching Heritage Center (NRHC) at Texas Tech University celebrates its 44th Annual Candlelight at the Ranch.
The event is free to the public with a suggested minimum $5 donation per family. In addition to more than 5,000 luminaries lining the paths of the 19-acre historic park, holiday scenes created in the historic structures will be lit as much as possible with lanterns, fireplaces and campfires.
“Pioneer ranches had no electricity, so we try to take each of our historic structures back to what it would have looked like at Christmas in its own time,” said Julie Hodges, NRHC Helen DeVitt Jones Endowed Director of Education, emphasizing that most of the 55 structures in the park are between 100 and 175 years old. As a result, many new volunteers have both fire and firearm safety training in the days leading up to Candlelight at the Ranch.