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CW Journal
: Christmas 2005 : Wreaths, Garlands, Ropes, and Fruit
photography by Barbara Lombardi
TAKE
FIFTEEN TRUCKLOADS of pine, holly, boxwood, magnolia, and berries; add three
miles of white pine roping; sprinkle them with 2,550 white pine and Fraser
fir wreaths, fold in seventy-nine cases of fruit, mix in a pinch of
imagination, and stir for a few days in early December. That's a recipe for a
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation serving of the all-natural Christmas
decorations that garnish Historic Area doors, drape eighteenth-century
windowsills, favor antique dining tables, and grace fireplace mantles. Prizes
are awarded for the best.
Always done by Grand
Illumination—December 4 in 2005—the garlands adorn seventy-five
exhibition buildings, trade shops, taverns, and offices and eighty-five private
homes in the 301-acre restored colonial capital. It takes four days and the
talents of sixteen carpenters, designers, and assistants, as well as scores of
residents, to dress the city in its Yuletide finery. When the work is
done—by dusk that day—more than 1,200 electric candles brighten
windows up and down Nicholson, Duke of Gloucester, and Francis Streets, and the
avenues that connect them, as guests gather for the season's annual fireworks
extravaganza. The displays are kept fresh into the New Year.
The practice began in the
1930s, the idea of the Reverend Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin, rector of the town's
Bruton Parish Church and Colonial Williamsburg's co-founder. Photographer
Barbara Lombardi gathered the best of her pictures from 2004 to illustrate the
promise of the tradition's seventieth anniversary, and shares them on these
pages.
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Wreaths, Garlands, Ropes & Fruit Slideshow
See more seasonal slideshows in our Multimedia section.
Listen to a Behind the Scenes Interview: Decorating for Christmas. Laura Viancour talks about the labor-intensive job of decorating the Historic Area for the Christmas season year after year.
 (MP3, 2.8Mb) || 
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Historic Triangle