Each holiday season, the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion in downtown Jackson comes alive with twinkling Christmas lights and festive decorations. All of these magical touches are made possible by Mississippi artists.

This year’s theme is “Made in Mississippi,” and honors the state’s many industries including small businesses, agriculture and tourism. Back in July, Gov. Tate Reeves and First Lady Elee Reeves’ team chose the theme to honor the local businesses, big and small, that have shaped the state.

April Hunter of Quitman was chosen as this year’s guest decorator. Hunter took over Fantasy Cottage Flowers and Gifts in 2008, eight years after its opening. In the 16 years since, Fantasy Cottage has flourished and become a community staple. Hunter provides flowers for weddings, funerals and everything in between, not just for Clarke County, but for all of Mississippi and even for some surrounding states.

Hunter’s work within the Governor’s Mansion began when she was chosen as a featured florist in Nov. 2022. Shortly after moving in to the Governor’s Mansion, the First Lady began the featured florist initiative as a way to support Mississippi artists. Each florist chosen provides floral arrangements for the mansion for the duration of their month. Hunter served as featured florist four more times in March and November of 2023 and in July and September of 2024.

Fantasy Cottage was set to serve as featured florist once again in November 2024. However, once Hunter and her team were chosen for the Christmas decorations, November was swapped out for December.

Guest decorators for Christmas in the Governor’s mansion are chosen each year out of a pool of applicants. Hunter’s application was one of seven proposals submitted to the First Lady in July. Hunter and her son Cody Hunter worked on the proposal, which outlined in detail her vision for the “Made in Mississippi” theme if Fantasy Cottage were to get chosen.

“We didn’t want to just scatter (the decorations) completely all over and it just be hodgepodge everywhere,” Hunter said. “We kind of wanted each room to have its own thing. For example, one of the bedrooms is the tourism room. Another bedroom we kind of geared more to mom-and-pop shops in Mississippi. Another one we geared towards Mississippi artists — your basket weavers, your potters. There’s a lot of Walter Anderson, McCarty’s (Pottery), Peter’s Pottery and Wolfe Studio.”

On Sept. 5, the Mississippi First Lady called Hunter and told her Fantasy Cottage had been chosen to decorate the Governor’s Mansion. Hunter and her team spent the next two months preparing. On Sunday, Dec. 1, Hunter and eight team members got to work bringing in the decorations. Everything had to be set up by the following Wednesday for a gathering in the mansion.

By 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3, Hunter’s work was complete. Hunter’s decorations fill several bedrooms, the entry way, a conference room and two parlors in the mansion.

“I believe that sometimes big things come in small packages,” Hunter said. “You don’t necessarily need a team of 50 to get a job done. Sometimes it’s better to have a small number of hardworking individuals, and each person plays an essential role.”

Gov. Reeves provided Hunter with a list of more than 300 Mississippi-owned businesses that have been established or that he felt have flourished during his tenure as governor. In order to incorporate all of the businesses, Hunter made a gold star with the name of each printed on the front. The gold stars hang on the only live Christmas tree in the mansion, a 14-foot tree in the Rose Parlor.

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The talk of the season, Hunter said, is the stuffed deer standing in front of a Christmas tree in the Gold Parlor, the room decorated to honor Mississippi’s agriculture industry. The deer, harvested by Danny Joe Jones in 2008, previously spent the better part of a decade greeting diners in Long’s Fish Camp, a restaurant in Enterprise, MS.

After long-time owner Rep. Troy Smith sold Long’s Fish Camp a few years ago, the new owners sent the deer back to Jones. While brainstorming about which decorations to put in the agriculture room, Hunter suddenly thought about that deer. She called up Rep. Smith who told Hunter the deer had been returned to Jones, who happened to be a frequent customer of Fantasy Cottage. Jones then lent the deer, who’s mount had since broken, to Hunter’s team. Hunter got the mount fixed up, and the deer traveled from Enterprise to Jackson.

“Apparently nobody’s ever brought in a deer to the mansion,” Hunter joked. “We did it… If I could have bottled up the reaction of the mansion staff when we showed up that day to start decorating and we literally came in with a real deer… we went pretty heavy.”

The deer is joined in the Gold Parlor by alligator head replicas and a turkey fan contrasted with some more traditional, festive Christmas decorations like the gold pine cones dotted throughout the room.

Among the extravagant Christmas decorations in the entrance, a gingerbread replica of the Governor’s Mansion sits greeting guests. The replica was made entirely by hand by Madison-based baker Beth Hennington.

Hennington has nearly a decade of experience under her belt with her cookie company The Vanillan. In 2022, Hennington’s career took an unexpected turn when she won Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge”. Since her Food Network victory, Hennington’s business has grown in ways she never thought possible. Hennington sold her first dozen cookies for $35. Now, a dozen of Hennington’s cookies go for $125, and as of December, she is booked until next August.

Looking at the detailed work on the gingerbread replica of the Governor’s Mansion, you may think Hennington has a long career of making gingerbread houses. In actuality, Hennington had never made anything like the replica in her life. Previously, the only gingerbread houses she made were the simple, four-walls-and-a-roof kind that come in pre-cut kits. In the summer, Hennington reached out to the Governor’s Mansion and asked if she could provide the replica for Christmas.

“I’ve made several different structures, but I’d never made a really big structure,” Hennington said. “So, why not? Let’s do a replica of the Governor’s Mansion as the first one. I mean, what was I thinking?”

Armed with cookie cutters and piping bags, from Saturday, Nov. 30 to Wednesday, Dec. 4, Hennington said she spent around 80 hours in her own kitchen constructing the gingerbread replica, leaving only a few hours for sleep. She used her own pictures of the mansion and some provided aerial photos as a guide. The process, Hennington said, consisted of a lot of trial and error.

“I debated on putting it together at the mansion, and then I thought, if I have calamities, problems, issues in the mansion kitchen where I’m not comfortable, where I don’t know where everything is, it might make it worse,” Hennington said.

In total, Hennington crafted 56 royal icing wreaths placed on the replica’s front door and 55 windows, all made individually by hand. She indented every single brick with a paintbrush before putting the walls into the oven. The completed structure is four feet long, two and a half feet tall and three feet wide at its widest point. The house is completely hollow inside, and the only non-edible features are the little decorations on the replica’s lawn and some paper on the inside of the windows.

The replica is held together solely by icing, and no glue was involved in the building process. Hennington used isomalt as an adherent, a sugar substitute that the baker called “hot glue for bakers.” Some of the structure’s walls are made from classic, soft gingerbread dough, and some are made from what’s known as “construction gingerbread,” which doesn’t contain eggs so the final product is stronger and studier.

After she had finished the replica, which was built on a piece of plywood, Hennington and her husband, Jackson Fire Department Captain Kenneth Hennington, laid down the seats of her Nissan Rouge and loaded up the structure. She then drove the replica from her home with her husband holding it steady from the front seat and delivered it straight to the Governor’s Mansion.

Despite the hard work and long hours, Hennington said she had a great time recreating the Governor’s Mansion out of gingerbread.

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“I’m playing with icing and gingerbread,” Hennington said. “My house smells good. I got Christmas music playing… my house has been the North Pole. I have always wanted to be an architect. I just didn’t know my medium was going to be gingerbread.”

All of the decorations will come down Jan. 2. Hennington said if the Governor doesn’t want to keep the gingerbread replica, she will take it back and preserve it with resin.

As for Hunter’s decorations, the Quitman florist said Jan. 2 will be a bittersweet day. Hunter called her decorations a “work of heart,” emphasizing what an honor the whole experience has been, especially for a small-town florist. Fantasy Cottage sits right across from the Quitman post office in a town with only two red lights, Hunter quipped.

“It takes my breath away sometimes when I think about the magnitude of it, but I’m so thankful and so proud that we were chosen,” Hunter said. “I hope that we have made Clarke County proud and Mississippi. This has been a Christmas to remember.”

Got a news tip? Contact Mary Boyte at mboyte@jackson.gannett.com