NEW BERN, N.C. – Instead of reindeer and Christmas trees, holiday visitors to Tryon Palace will see dragons and exotic flowers as this year’s “Far East” theme.

• Tryon Palace has a "Far East" holiday theme this year
• It takes 400 volunteer hours to make the handmade decorations
• The decorations will be on display for six weeks

The historic site went with the unusual theme due to some past context.

“They were very much into kind of that whole Asian culture thing in the 18^th century, and so we figured this would be a good year to kind of play on that,” Tryon Palace Lead Holiday Decorator Hadley Cheris said.

Every year Cheris strives for something different. The tourists like this year’s decorations.

“That was wonderful,” visitor Valerie Boatwright said. “The handmade decorations were just outrageously beautiful, and the placement just fit in with the decor.”

Cheris spends most of the year making the decorations by hand. It takes 400 volunteer hours to decorate the 14 buildings on the site.

“We’ll actually start building some of the decorations in May, and then we’ll have to really hit the pedal to the metal in the beginning of November,” Cheris said.

The decorations will be on display for six weeks.