We give you the tips and tricks for getting the most out of visiting Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas time. If you are a fan of coming here…this is a MUST DO!

Intro: 0:00
Williamsburg Christmas Market: 0:11
Historical Character Plays: 2:38
Ice Skating: 3:33
Historic Decorations: 4:28
Grand Illumination Proclamation: 6:51
Williamsburg Inn at night: 8:05
Palace Green holiday sights to see: 8:49
When to see the fireworks: 10:32

Website: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/

Transcript

Episode 90 – Christmas in Williamsburg

[00:00:00] Jenn: We’re in Colonial Williamsburg today. We are showing you what Williamsburg looks like at Christmas time, and one of the things they have here is a Christmas market. It’s on Court Street. It’s the street right behind. The Rockefeller Art Museum. And it’s free. It’s open to the public. It’s Thursday, Friday, Saturdays and Sundays.

[00:00:36] It’s done by December 21st, but it’s the Williamsburg Christmas market, so we’re gonna go check it out.

[00:01:20] They have really cute booths here, all different types of art and food, local, uh, crafts. I bought some photographs that were colorized, some historical photographs that were color. But it’s very nice. Like I said, right behind the museum, they have Santa Claus here. One of the special things they do here for Williamsburg for Christmas.

[00:01:42] It’s very nice, and I think at night this gets very fun and built up. We’ll bring our kids back here so they can see it and get some hot cocoa and walk around, but they have. Fires going so you get the nice smell of Christmas as well. So it’s just a really fun place to be. And like I said, it’s free, it’s open to the public and it’s very close to Colonial Williamsburg on Court Street, just right beside the museum.

[00:02:09] You ready? Me shy?

[00:02:13] No, I wanna film you. You never get to be in anything.

[00:02:32] Decorations are in full effect, so you’re gonna have the wreaths and the ribbons on all the lights here. We did something pretty cool. There was a show at the auditorium at Rockefeller Museum, and it was Martha in George Washington, their first. Anniversary. So the first year after they were married, Martha had just come down with measles.

[00:02:57] So it’s a, it’s a little reenactment of her on the other side of the illness. And George had kind of held down the fort for the weeks or so. She had the measles. And the house is kind of a disarray. All of that is acted out from a primary source. The letter that George Washington had written about Martha being.

[00:03:19] Um, taken down with the measles and what he was doing to kind of keep things going at Mountain Vernon. Colonial Williams would go offered these little shows and these little reenactments that you can go to and just get a taste of what it was like at the time. One of the other things they have here, right on Duke of Gloucester, right?

[00:03:36] When you get to the end of the colonial. They have a, um, they have an ice skating rink, and it’s kind of small, but it’s kind of iconic and neat to say that you ice skated at Colonial Williamsburg.

[00:04:18] Very cool. Colonial house will have a little placard, um, if it’s a reconstruction or original building who lived here? And some history about the person who lived here. These little information placards will be on every colonial home in Colonial Williamsburg. So if you’re interested and you walk by and you read them, but since this is a Christmas episode, I really wanna talk about decorations.

[00:04:41] So this is probably the lady who lived at the home here. Her pictures depicted on this, but most decorations in colonial Williamsburg are natural decorations. What you can find here to make. So of course you’re gonna get. Gar. The garland would usually be the pine trees, branches, old leaves. Do we have oyster shells here?

[00:05:03] Sometimes if you have something with bells that was made from metal, but everything here is something you could gather locally. Found together and used as a decoration. I, we’ve talked about this before, oysters being very prominent food source here in Colonial Williamsburg, since you’re right on the water.

[00:05:22] So oysters are used in decorations. Oysters are used as gravel for the floor, for the ground as well. A lot of what they use here, Is fruit. So a mantle in colonial times, a mantle will have fruit on it, and you’ll have pomegranates, you’ll have pumpkins, you’ll have squashes, and those things will align a mantle in colonial Williamsburg.

[00:05:44] But decorations outside will be fabrics, plants, uh, twigs, things that you could find and gather and decorate your. So this is the winner of decorating in Colonial Williamsburg Bread of Life. So again, they’re decorating with what they have. So they’re making bread, they’re putting it in a basket. They have the wheat beside it, some sticks, uh, some branches, and then pine cones.

[00:06:13] But again, they’re decorating with. What they have at home, what’s available to them, and then showing their abundance and being grateful for it. So you have the decoration. Did you have a star that they made as well? Glad you see their gold ripping over here. But they put bread in a basket on the reef front.

[00:06:55] Yankee up and ready.

[00:07:14] Come here. Come on. Hurry. A petr by trade with wishes and dreams all joyously made. It is the time to make Mary with feasting and cheer and wishing a merry Christmas to all gathered here. The warmth of goodwill in the. Of a December evening. In short, it is time for a Colonial Williamsburg Grand Illumination.

[00:08:20] I’m standing in front of the Williamsburg in the Colonial Williamsburg in decorated for Christmas. So if you wanna see all the lights and the Christmas trees out front of the Colonial Williamsburg in, you have to wait night, fall. But as soon as it does, it’s really beautiful.

[00:09:15] Happy.

[00:09:44] So we just saw the Proclamation of Christmas here at Colonial Williamsburg. Uh, 1760. We saw the, the fives and drums play and march forward onto the Governor’s palace. We’ll be partaking of the grant illumination tonight, where you get to see the fireworks from the Governor’s palace and the Capitol. But this is what Luna Williamsburg looks like at night.

[00:10:08] They do this three times a year, the first three Saturdays in December from five o’clock to 7:00 PM and it’s an awesome event. So if you can make it out, I definitely recommend it.