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Dolls will frolic amid the holiday displays at Brandywine River Museum during its Christmas celebration.

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A BRANDYWINE CHRISTMAS WILL BEGIN NOV. 23 w/1 cut

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CHADDS FORD, PENN. — The Brandywine River Museum celebrates the holiday season with A Brandywine Christmas, November 23–January 6 with displays including an extensive O-gauge model railroad, an elaborate Victorian dollhouse and thousands of whimsical critters on holiday trees.

“Jerry Pinkney: Aesop’s Fables and Other Tails,” an exhibition featuring original watercolor illustrations by Jerry Pinkney, will be on view during A Brandywine Christmas. Pinkney, winner of five Caldecott Honors and five Coretta Scott King awards, has interpreted animals from such well-known fables as “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.”

A family favorite returning this year are dolls from the Ann Wyeth McCoy collection. Dressed in antique doll or children’s clothing, or in costumes designed and sewn by McCoy, the dolls are posed in a festive outdoor holiday setting. McCoy’s daughters and son donated these rare dolls to the museum, ensuring that the Brandywine River Museum will continue to share this Christmas tradition with its visitors in years to come.

An integral part of A Brandywine Christmas is the museum’s O-gauge train display. New to the fleet of trains this year is a deluxe passenger train, The California Zephyr. The trains run simultaneously on more than 2,000 feet of track, winding past a village, stone quarry, oil refinery, mountains, Herr Foods plant and a running waterfall, as Santa and his sleigh fly overhead. The “rail cam,” mounted on a snowplow, gives visitors a view from the perspective of a miniature locomotive driver. Back by popular demand, Thomas the Tank Engine, his friends Toby and Percy, and others will again entertain the youngest “trainers.”

“Critter” will once more decorate holiday trees, wreaths and diorama settings throughout the museum. These ornaments, made from all-natural materials by museum volunteers, have adorned Christmas trees at the White House and have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.

The Brandywine River Museum is on US Route 1. For information, 610-388-2700 or www.brandywinemuseum.org.