The Nutcracker Sweet…
We attended a wonderful rendition of the Nutcracker Suite performed by a troupe of mostly high school students. They danced beautifully, the sets were great, and of course Tchaikovsky’s famous score is always awesome to listen to.
Snow Day
Sunday night it snowed, and the schools were placed on a 2 hour delay Monday morning. This delighted both our grandchildren and our daughter (the teacher), but amused us greatly… because there must have been 3mm of snow! Ok, I realize the roads may have been icy in spots, but it really was funny! Here are our grandkids having fun in the huge snowfall!
Colonial Christmas
We decided to get a few things off the boat, check out the progress there, and rack up a few more flight miles… So while back in Virginia, we spent Thursday evening at Colonial Williamsburg. All the houses are decorated as they would have been in the 1700’s – so no huge colored lights here! The one exception is the Williamsburg Inn, which is “off property”, and done up with millions of little white lights.
I love both architecture and night photography, so I had great fun here. Most of the houses had a single candle in every window.
Every evening they have a ceremonial illumination of the taverns. (No, I did not get illuminated in a tavern). The Fife and Drum corps starts at one end of Duke of Glouster street, playing as they march, stopping at every tavern. There are several taverns on that street, and at each the torch bearers would light 4 cressets, which are wire baskets fixed to posts. These fires, at about 6 feet off the ground, provided very impressive illumination in the cold dark night.
Ice Skating
It seemed very nostalgic to see open air ice skating on this beautiful clear night…
The College of William and Mary
The college was founded in 1693, making it the second oldest in the US, behind Harvard. King William and Queen Mary would be proud of its beautiful campus.
Bruton Parish Church Colonial Christmas Concert
The Bruton Parish Church was completed in 1715. That was the beautiful venue for a concert by the Manassas Chorale, about 100 voices strong. And I do mean strong! They were fabulous, and in that magnificent old church, the concert was almost enough to bring tears to your eyes! (And I must admit, sitting in the harsh 300 year old pews almost brought tears also). I don’t remember ever seeing a chandelier in a public place with real candles lit before…
They reminded us that it was 200 years ago this Christmas that the organ broke down in a small town in Austria, and the priest couldn’t imagine a Christmas eve service with no music. So he had a poem he’d written set to music, and performed to guitar accompaniment that beautiful Silent Night.
The concert was breathtaking, and an awesome finale to an evening in Colonial Williamsburg.
