2021 Christmas

Every year at Christmastime, we try to visit somewhere with holiday decorations and spirit. This year was no different. Our destination: Williamsburg, Virginia. Specifically Busch Gardens Christmastown, where Christmas shines brightest with over 10 million lights and Colonial Williamsburg. Both are reported to be decked out with holiday decorations and holiday spirit! We purchased our ‘Bounce’ tickets that would allow us to park hop back and forth, purchased our Wreath Tour tickets, reserved our Clydes and Collies tour, packed our bags, loaded the car and off we went on a holiday road trip.

Our trip starts at the hotel where this beautiful fireplace welcomed us. Then, in our room, Karen surprised me with a lovely red Christmas cactus, which I hope to keep alive! The Santa figurine was a bonus that neither of us expected, placed in the middle of the plant! I had brought the candy cane tree and gingerbread snowman with me to brighten the room for Christmas.

Our first visit was to Colonial Williamsburg to shop the Market Square and grab some local food. We knew that a holiday weekend could be difficult to find open restaurants with available seating, but we did OK as we ate at DoG Pub, Outback, Mellow Mushroom, Colonial Pancake and not so great fare at Busch Gardens.

We visited Colonial Williamsburg during the spring a couple years ago. So we knew we wanted to specifically see a couple of places – the Governor’s Palace for sure, hoping to see some fantastic decorations – outside was great, inside did not have even a tree, wreath or garland. We also took an organized wreath tour – see separate post, Wreaths of Colonial Williamsburg 2021.

We enjoyed stolling through Colonial Williamsburg. I had an interesting exchange with a costumed lawyer who seemed to take offense that I would not give him my last name. I told him I was Lady Dee of Fairfax. LOL I guess I wasn’t prepared to banter in a colonial way! Lots of costumed characters walking about on this beautiful December day. The carriage rides are very popular and all were sold out very early.

If you look carefully, you may be able to see a single candle in the windows. From its very beginning, this tradition has been a sign of hope, safety, warmth, and love. It’s origin in Irish.

We took the complimentary trolley to the Art Museum, ate lunch at the museum cafe and enjoyed looking at the displays. Loved the quilt displays!

Now that we’ve done Colonial Williamsburg proud, well, all except for my encounter with the attorney, we headed to Busch Gardens Christmastown, land of over 10 million lights. Lots of walking and uneven terrain – they need to put oxygen tanks at the top of some of the hills! But definitely, the lights were something to see, especially in Christmastown. We also saw some pretty great live entertainment, for an amusement park. The lights going across the street in Christmastown remind me of going to my grandparents at Christmas. The streets of Canisteo, NY always had decorations spanning the street. The worst lights for me were the areas with blue lights. Having limited vision to begin with, these blue lights made it incredibly difficult to see people, strollers, wandering kids and the edges of the walkways.

Probably one of the bigger disappointments was our Clydes and Collies tour. A very short interaction with one Clydesdale, named Eddie and one persnickity border collie who didn’t care to be petted much. The tour was at 5:30PM, it was dark and the lighting cast shadows making photography difficult. A bonus that I didn’t participate in but Karen enjoyed was feeding some black face sheep nearby.

Just a note about Busch Gardens – if you have any mobility issues at all, whether it’s hips, heart or health, I strongly recommend paying the exhobitant amount ($80) to rent a scooter. The first day there, I used my walker. I would have never made it a second day without that expensive scooter! And don’t be ‘cheap’ and get the wheelchair either. It won’t be easy for the person pushing you!

After an exhausting 4 days with beautiful weather at Christmastime, it was time to check out of our hotel, pack up the car once again and head home. We turned on our Christmas lights when we arrived to enjoy for a few more days before taking on the task of packing it all away again for another year.

We hope that all our friends and family had a great Christmas. We wish us all well in the new year and hope that the world gets healthier again so we can get back to our regularly scheduled travels that have been put on hold for over two years.

The business of life is the acquisition of memories.
-Carson, the butler, Downton Abbey

The Wreaths of Colonial Williamsburg 2021

As I was looking for the ‘right’ pictures to post on our Christmas 2021 trip blog, I realized that these special wreaths deserved their own blog post. Strict guidelines are in place for Colonial Williamsburg residents and shop owners alike regarding their wreaths. Wreaths must be placed for a specific time and can only include local items used or found during colonial times, which may include apples, wheat, oranges, magnolia leaves, shells, pods, nuts, fruit, eucalyptus, evergreen, boxwood, pine cones, etc as pictured below. Shop owners may add specific items to their wreaths that depict the trade of the shop such as yarn, leather, ribbon, etc. If the house included children in the family, you might see toys, dolls, cards and dice as part of the decorations. Of note is the rule that if a wreath includes items from the 21st century for example, it must be taken down, reworked and rehung immediately. The wreaths must remain fresh looking and if damaged by animals (squirrels mostly) or fading in freshness they must be repaired and replaced. You might see small ribbons next to a wreath, they were awarded by independent judges from outside of Colonial Williamsburg. We had a very knowlegeable guide on our Wreath Tour, which was conducted down Duke of Gloucester (DoG) Street. Your complimentary Wreath Tour begins below. I hope you enjoy the gallery of pictures and maybe even get some incentive to create your own welcoming wreath for your door next Christmas.

Note: you may need to click on the picture to see the full image.

This concludes your tour. We hope you enjoyed it! Compliments are the best gratuity! 😉

Christmas Village 2021

And so it begins…getting ready to set up the Christmas Village in a very limited space this year. There are bins and boxes and stuff all over the living room, with a narrow path through it all. The tables are up, the tablecoths spread, the tree is in the corner without ornaments. Spacing of everything is critical for the finished project. It’s a mix of fall and Christmas right now. It usually takes me about 2 weeks to set up the village and I like to have it up for the Thanksgiving holiday and all of December, so I’m right on track time-wise to meet that goal.

Anyone who knows me, knows I love Christmas and decorate the whole house. When Karen and I became roommates, we doubled our holiday decorations and merged our two villages, making the village display huge! Generally speaking, all the village houses were hand-painted by me with some assistance from Karen in more recent years. Many of the accessory pieces have been purchased, but many of the figurines were also painted by me, when I had much better eyesight!

I’ve gotten to the point that I have certain story lines that I like to form with the placement of the buildings and accessories. There’s always a Candy Cane Lane, a Maple Sugar Factory in honor of my Dad, a Town Square with lighted town tree, a train and depot, a snowball fight near the ice skating rink and campfire, a farm with a tree lot and animals, a covered bridge and horse-drawn sleigh on the way to Grandmother’s house and of course the church with nativity scene.

I’ve named my town Mistletoe, after a Harlequin book I read years ago and keep a copy of the book with the village. It’s a story about a magical village that pops up once a year, just like mine.

Originally, I painted 3 of these villages, one for me and one for each of my daughters, incorporating their favorte hobbies and likes with the buildings that were gifted each year along with an accessaroy piece or two. Today, our village is a merging of Karen’s and mine with an added building in honor of her Dad and my late husband.

And now, the village is being put away once again, until it pops up next Christmastime. It’s a joy to be able to see it every day and remember the love that went into each and every handpainted piece. I would love to be able to leave it up year round, but apartments don’t factor in space for that!

So here’s my wish to each of you for 2022 (copied from a friend’s Facebook post)

Our Christmas Vacations Thru the Years

Each year, my daughter, Karen, and I try to travel to somewhere interesting during the Christmas holiday. We are never 100% sure where it will be until time off from work has been approved or we are not in the middle of a move to a new state or location. Below is our yearly calendar, starting with the first year of this tradition until present day 2021.

2010 – Disneyland, California