This image of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s iconic Hooper Strait Lighthouse graced the cover of the Christmas edition of the New Yorker magazine on December 3, 1984.

Painted by illustrator Susan Davis, who had a home on nearby Tilghman Island, this holiday scene has changed little in the last 20 years since it was painted. As a comparison between then and now shows, traditions run deep at our maritime museum. The lighthouse is always decorated for the holidays, and each year we run a lighted tree up the mast of our skipjack, Rosie Parks. We like to honor the past, at Christmastime, and every day. It’s the Chesapeake way.