PHOTO: COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VA
The of
The Grand Illumination has been part of Colonial
Williamsburg’s modern holiday celebrations since 1934. The event’s fireworks are reminis- cent of the way colonial residents once lit fireworks to signal a military victory or the birth of a monarch.
Margene Whitler Hucek
URING the month of December, going for a stroll along Duke of Gloucester
Street, Colonial Williamsburg’s main thoroughfare, is like stepping back into an eighteenth-century Christmas season. Pine wreaths decorated with apples and oranges hang on doors; carolers dressed in long skirts and bonnets sing out; and sounds of the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes and Drums can be heard in the distance. By late afternoon, it’s already dark, but there is merriment in the air, and as throngs head down to the old capitol, the only light is from the flickering cressets—iron baskets filled with pine pitch—that are mounted on poles along the way.
On the first Sunday of December, the event everyone has been waiting for—the Grand Illumination—begins.
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At exactly 6:15 p.m., the darkness breaks as candles are lit in the buildings all around town, and the night sky is illuminated as the air fills with low-flying fireworks that wel- come the start of the Christmas season. This is the Grand Illumina- tion. It has been part of the Colonial Williamsburg holiday season for more than seventy-five years and is remi- niscent of the way colonial residents once lit fireworks to signal a military victory or the birth of a monarch.
A Colonial Christmas For the Anglicans who originally settled in Williamsburg, Christmas day was observed as a holy day. Townspeople typically attended morning communion at Bruton Parish Church, the same church that Thomas Jefferson would later worship in when he was governor of Virginia, and then they would attend dinners that reminded them of home in England. These meals would include old
favorites like roast beef and goose and, of course, plum pudding, but would also feature delights more a part of their existence in the New World, like wild turkey and venison.
Colonial residents of Williamsburg celebrated the Christmas season with gusto, and the holidays lasted a full twelve nights, ending with Epiphany, on January 6. During this celebratory season, plantation owners hosted fox hunts, while townspeople gathered for dances. Tables overflowed with fish, shrimp, and oysters from the sur- rounding waters, and a Virginia ham was sure to find its way to many tables. As residents of the largest and most prosperous of the colonial towns of Virginia, the wealthiest citizens of Williamsburg had access to imported wines and French brandy; however, less-affluent households served locally brewed beer and ale, or, perhaps, a brandy made from their own peaches. Apple cider was also popular. While there are no written records
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