Historic St. Mary’s City to Host Hearth & Home
Close out the museum season with warmth, food, and history during Hearth & Home, taking place November 28 and 29, 2025, at Historic St. Mary’s City. This year’s theme, Breaking Bread, celebrates the power of food to bring people together—across tables, cultures, and centuries.
Visitors are invited to explore how Maryland’s earliest residents—Indigenous peoples and English colonists alike—prepared and shared meals in the 1600s. Throughout the museum’s living history sites, costumed interpreters will demonstrate traditional cooking methods over open hearths and fires, filling the air with the inviting aroma of wood smoke. Learn how people in the past baked, roasted, and preserved their food, and discover how communal meals strengthened families and communities.
In the spirit of sharing, visitors who bring a nonperishable food item or personal care product to donate will receive $1 off admission. All donations will support a local food bank, providing assistance to community members affected by the government furlough. Suggested items include canned goods, pasta, peanut butter, toiletries, and hygiene products. Maryland Food Bank offers a detailed list of suggested items.
Admission is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, $6 for youth (ages 6 to 18), and free for children 5 and younger and HSMC members. Admission includes all activities and access to the museum’s exhibits.
Historic St. Mary’s City participates in Museums for All, an initiative of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Association of Children’s Museums. This national program promotes access and inclusion by offering reduced admission to visitors with an EBT card. At HSMC, admission is $3 for adults and seniors and $1 for youth (ages 6 to 18).
To learn more, visit www.museums4all.org.
Tickets may be purchased at the Visitor Center (18751 Hogaboom Lane, St. Mary’s City, MD). For more information about this event or the museum, call 1-800-762-1634 or 301-994-4370, or go to www.HSMCdigshistory.org.
Historic St. Mary’s City invites the public to celebrate the holiday season at Frost Fair on Saturday, December 6, 2025, from 1 to 6pm. Inspired by traditional holiday markets, the festive outdoor event will feature family activities, live entertainment, and seasonal cheer.
Guests can enjoy holiday decorations, carolers, and even a ride with Santa aboard the museum’s “People Mover” tram. The State House will transform into the Gingerbread Zone with crafts and photo opportunities, while children can shop for loved ones at the Kids’ Secret Shop.
Throughout the day, visitors can warm up by fire pits with s’mores, sip hot cocoa, and explore food trucks and local artisan vendors for holiday shopping. Special attractions include a showing of the holiday film Elf, a kids’ dance party in the Pavilion, the Copper Rein Horse Trailer Bar—open for business and serving beer, wine, and a prosecco holiday cocktail, and cozy seating inside the Patuxent Dental Winter Dome. Children will also enjoy playing in the Visit St. Mary’s/Andersen Windows Snow Globe.
Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children, or $20 for a family package. The event will take place rain or shine unless severe weather occurs.
Tickets and full details are available here.
