The flurry of activity in the small cabin was both familiar and foreign. Two men worked together to wrestle fresh cedar boughs into a wreath. Just-strung popcorn garlands hung over the back of a chair, and the smell of homemade cookies filled the air. But whereas my family bakes sugar cookies from store-bought dough around the holidays, this variety (which I would later learn is called Springerle) was square and stamped with delicate designs using an old wooden rolling pin. The cookbook was from 1916 and sat next to an oil lamp, the only light in the room. Every year in December, reenactors work together to prepare for the annual tree lighting at Sauer-Beckmann farm, a living history museum on the outskirts of Stonewall, in the…