Oatlands

Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Va., ushers in the Yuletide season on Saturday. "Christmas at Oatlands" brings back the holiday atmosphere of the Victorian age, when this 18-room mansion was home to two generations of Virginia's Carter family.The Christmas tree is a local pine trimmed with paper chains, popcorn, cranberries and small paper lanterns. Arrangements throughout the house make use of laurel, magnolia leaves, pine cones, nuts and fruits. They are made by hand as they were in the 1880s, using greens and other natural materials gathered from the estate.

There are more than the usual number of events around the region next weekend, so get out your traveling shoes.Family Day next Sunday is one of the big events of the year at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Del. The setting is the original du Pont mills, estate and gardens. The entire complex will be open to visitors and activities are geared to life in the 19th century. There will be a Civil War encampment by the 61st New York Volunteer Infantry Mifflin Guard, whose members will participate that afternoon in a 19th century baseball game (played by the 1845 rules of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club)

A day in the country filled with diversion awaits those who visit Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va., Saturday or next Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.The main event is the eighth annual Sheep Dog Trials, which attract sheep dog handlers from such faraway places as California, Kentucky, Canada and Scotland. The two-day competition is the third leg of the nationally sanctioned Virginia Triple Crown. Using only whistles and hand signals, handlers will direct their dogs to herd sheep, cattle and even ducks.

Among the first of the great houses in the region to celebrate the Christmas season is Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, Va. The holiday season at Oatlands opens on Saturday and continues through Dec. 22.Decorations throughout this classic revival mansion re-create a Victorian Yuletide, with kissing balls of aromatic boxwood and arrangements of magnolia leaves, pine cones, fruits and nuts. Much of the material used is gathered from the plantation grounds, and the decorations are reconstructed from descriptions in a diary of Elizabeth Grayson Carter Beach, who was born at Oatlands in 1867.