After stringing blinking lights and setting up plastic snowmen, holiday enthusiasts can come take a look at what Christmas was like before all the fanfare.

The Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site is hosting its 26th annual Prairie Christmas this weekend. The event is free to all, including students who need a break from finals cramming. It will be held Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

Tom Vance, the historic site’s manager, said Prairie Christmas gives people a chance to get back to the roots of the holiday.

“It’s an opportunity to see what Christmas is about,” he said.

Christmas was not widely celebrated in the prairie during the 1800s, Vance said. The different houses at the site will each host various activities. Visitors will be able to see reenactments of Christmas in that period.

The Lincoln cabin will have winter activities, hog butchering, lard rendering and sausage making. The Sargent farm will have open-hearth cooking.

The Moore family home will showcase a Civil War era Christmas. They will have a sassafras tree and will be making ornaments.

In the visitor’s center, a winter quilt exhibit will be on display. Mother Lode and Sacred Harp Note Singers will be performing Christmas music. Hot cider and other refreshments will be available in the Harris Education Center.

Visitors will have the chance to make their own Christmas ornaments and decorations, and be able to watch a toy carver honing his craft. The carver, Pappy Horne, makes wooden toy crafts that will be for sale. Also, the Goosenest Prairie Gift Shop will be selling books, reproductions of historic items and crafts.

“Spending time out in the country,” Vance said, is another reason why students should come out.

The Lincoln Cabin is the recreated home of Abraham’s father Thomas and stepmother Sarah Bush Lincoln. The cabin is located eight miles south of Charleston.