Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg

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Jen, , you did a good job of really saying, here's why these

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doors are decorated in this manner.

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Because people would look at 'em and you could tell they were kind of doing double

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takes or looking longer because there'd be a wreath with like a big circle of apples.

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Yes.

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You're like, why is there a big circle of apples on there?

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And you explained that.

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We don't have any guests tonight, so we're gonna talk about what you

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probably saw in the thumbnail, which is Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg.

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But before we do that, I wanna let the folks know that this episode is brought

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Mm-hmm.

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And you can join us there or you can find us on the podcast.

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So, Jen, let's talk a little bit about Colonial Williamsburg or Christmas.

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It was quite a treat.

Jenn: 00:01:41

It was awesome.

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It was really walking back into time and then of course Christmas decorations

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and the feeling of Christmas everywhere.

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It was really just a, a really great experience.

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So, I mean, to do Colonial Williamsburg is cool, but to do Colonial Williamsburg

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at Christmas time is like super cool.

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Yeah.

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And one of the, the things that we tried to highlight, we actually had to do

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two trips to kind of cover everything.

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So Friday, because it was your birthday not long ago, and

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birthday, she's a December birthday.

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So we went down and, and I took the, the day off on Friday.

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You took the day off on Friday.

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And so we went down for your birthday.

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So we spent the whole day down there, did a whole bunch of stuff.

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And, but on Saturday, and we'll talk about this a little bit

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later the first three Saturday.

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Of December.

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Colonial Williamsburg does something pretty unique.

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birthday.

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Yes, they do.

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What they call the grand illumination.

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But it was interesting how we found out about this.

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So we had gone for my birthday, like you said, and I had packed the day

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full of events, and we'll talk about those events because they were awesome.

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But one of the things we did that we've been trying to do, For a while was

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they have a veteran's place on the main street where if you're a veteran you

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can go in and get like hot chocolate and speak to the people in there.

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And they had a bunch of coins.

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And I know that one of the, his historic fellow historians we follow on Instagram

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did a little thing about challenge coins and military challenge coins.

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So they had like racks of challenge coins in there.

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And we got our hot chocolate in there and they had said to us, are you coming

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back tomorrow for the grand illumination?

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And we're like, well, what's that?

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And the gentleman there was like, oh, it's awesome.

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They used to just do it one time in December, but because they did it

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one time and like 20,000 people came,

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no, he said like

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Oh, it's like 50,000 people.

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came.

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They've spread it out to three nights now in December.

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So the first three Saturdays in December from five to seven, they.

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Have a declaration of Christmas.

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They pretend like it's Christmas 1760, and they, they go to a couple different of the

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historic homes and make these declarations and light the candles in the windows.

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But the coolest part is the fireworks.

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So they do colonial fireworks from the governor's palace, which is the

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big building at the end of the green.

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and then the capital building.

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So those are like the two buildings that are kind of perpendicular to

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each other in Colonial Williamsburg.

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But another cool thing is they have these baskets of wood along Duke of

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Gloucester, which is Gloucester, which is the big street in Colonial Williamsburg.

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And they light them.

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Yeah.

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And so, so we did our best in the video, which I think folks, probably

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a couple folks I know who are chat or in the chat saw the video.

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You know, we, we tried to, there's actually some steps that they

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use for the horse carriages.

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Yeah.

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And so Jen was like, Hey Scott, get up on those steps so you can

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get a good shot of the street.

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And so that's what that picture of is.

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If you watched the, the video, I actually got up on these steps that

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are there to help actually people get into some of the horse carriages.

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But the steps were left behind because the horse carriages were long gone.

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And, and so I tried to get that, that picture with all

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the torches lining the street.

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It was very cool.

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Gave it that very colonial vibe,

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a very colonial vibe because we had done a haunted williamsburg

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tour, which those are all year long.

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So if you ever wanna do a haunted tour and during those haunted tours

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they take you to different locations and light like a, like a fire.

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Yeah.

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And that's kind of cool cuz you're like, this is kind of what they

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would use as light in colonial times.

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Right.

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It would be, lanterns at night or fire.

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So it's neat to be there as they light these.

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But to see these lit kind of torches, they're like baskets of

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fire the whole way down the street.

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They have one every couple yards.

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It was just super cool and we show you on the video, like our kids are kind of like

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looking at it like, wow, that's so neat.

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Before we kind of dive a little bit deeper into the kind of grand

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illumination, you know, events, what was the first thing that we did?

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It was the, the, the market.

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So if you watch our, you know, recommendations to visit Williamsburg,

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we're gonna recommend you park at the Rockefeller Folk Art Museum because if

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you park at the visitor center, it's going to be a bus ride over or a very long walk.

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So we recommend parking at the museum and at the museum for

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Christmas, they do a Christmas, Williamsburg, Christmas marketplace

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an outside kind of farmer's market.

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And court street is the street right behind the museum and they close Court

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Street and it's just, it's really cool.

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Artisans crafts food.

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They've got little hot chocolate.

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chocolate,

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beer.

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Beer and wine for the adults

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and sell little like cute things that you would buy for Christmas.

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I bought some historical photographs that had been colorized,

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like of the wasps and stuff.

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But they have Santa Claus, so the kids were really happy about that.

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And it's free and it's a great way for you to kind of see everything.

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But we had parked there because, During Christmas, and this is true, anytime

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you're at Colonial Williamsburg, they do little like shows and performances and

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I had made reservations to see Merriment and, measles, I think it was called.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And it's about, it's was so cool.

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It's about.

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George Washington and Martha Washington's first Christmas

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together after they're married.

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So they're married January 6th, 1759, and this.

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Show is January 6th, 1760.

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And so it's the first year of marriage and Martha has just come

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down with the measles and she's kind of on the other side of the measles.

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And it comes from a letter that George Washington wrote.

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Some of his correspondence that he had written saying that, you know,

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Martha was really sick and it was touch and go there for a while, he

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really thought he was gonna lose her.

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They ended up bringing the doctor, they ended up sending the children away

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and and that she was feeling better.

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Even though he oversaw Mount Vernon, she oversaw the household.

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So he had to, he had to step into kind of her role, the household role.

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Yeah.

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He had to

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is taking care of all the people and Wow.

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the,

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Logistics, food and just, and, and it was Christmas time, so, Christmas in

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Cologna times is not Christmas today.

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I, I tell

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was interesting.

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Christmas during cologna times is a lot, what we think of Thanksgiving today

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because we didn't have, than Thanksgiving is a, is a newer tradition probably

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within the last 200 years to celebrate it.

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Like

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we did.

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And so this was supposed to be like sixth night or 12th

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12th night, which if you do the 12 days of Christmas, it starts

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Christmas day and then the 12 days after, so it's 12th night, which is

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January 6th when they're married,

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saying in the, in the, this little play.

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12th night.

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Yeah.

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12th night of Christmas thanksgiving is more like a

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celebration of thankfulness and you're thanking people who worked for you.

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And so really it's for children and for servants.

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. Really.

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You take, you buy gifts for children and you make sure you're, you,

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you kind of give your servants like you're, they're yearly.

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Thank you.

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Yeah.

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It's not really, maybe adults would, would give a, something small, you

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know, like this is for Christmas, but they really didn't do that.

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It was mostly like,

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I

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think that that setting kind of really helped this particular play because

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he was Colonel Washington at the time.

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Yeah.

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So he was younger, right?

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Yeah.

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So this was celebrating their first year of, of marriage.

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Yes.

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And they talk about Martha's finally feeling better and she's

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like, well, did you do this?

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Did you do this?

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Did you do this?

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And she touched naming off all these things and he, he.

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Fires right back and not being mean, but just saying like, oh yes, I

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did this and here's how I did it.

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Oh, you mean that, and he's talking about all the stuff that he did, and then they,

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they kind of have the interplay of, you know, a young married couple and Yeah.

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But it was, it was interesting all the things that he did during that time.

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He, he got, I think he got her book.

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and then he was like going through her book and then making sure all the things

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that she wanted to get done, giving people their presents and stuff for Christmas.

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And taking care of the children and making sure their children got away.

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You know, cuz they hadn't had the measles then she kind of felt it unneeded.

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Yeah.

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Because she's like, well, you're able to do all of this.

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I'm unneeded.

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Yeah.

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And they, I mean they, without going too far into that aspect of it, they went

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down into the, the married couple role.

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But they did a great job.

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And the, the actress, the.

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I, I assume that's what we would call her, who plays Martha Washington is

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fantastic

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The

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She's so good.

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We've seen her a couple

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times.

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We've seen her a couple times.

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She knows her primary sources.

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Okay.

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So she's pulling lines and she's saying things from primary sources,

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primary letters and documents that were written about Martha Washington.

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So we're recalling like her childhood.

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Yeah.

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And where she grew up, and her father and her brothers and sisters

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yeah, so, so all that to say when you go to Colonial Williamsburg during

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Christmas, they have other plays, other things that they're putting on that they

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don't normally put on throughout the year.

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That was definitely one of those things that are worth it.

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And then the other one we saw was a Charles Dickens

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Yeah,

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that one I don't think we talked about on the

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video.

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either.

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But it was neat.

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They were playing old instruments.

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They would read pieces from Charles, different dickens, different works.

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Yeah.

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And they would read it.

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I appreciated the way that they read it because it really brought out

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his writing style and the, and the.

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that of the era.

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Yes.

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And then that, and then they would play these traditional interns.

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It was really neat.

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They had colonial instruments that Charles Dickens would've seen

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being played if he was alive at the time, and they, they can play them.

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And then they sang older Christmas carols and like invited us

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to join them, which was neat.

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And then they really, they focused a lot on a Christmas

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Carol and Fie Wings, winks calves,

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Yeah.

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Yeah, it was.

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And how ca male, men's calves were like the most attractive part of the male

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They, they highlighted that they, the actors, the, the musicians did a good

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job of kind of really emphasizing some of these more humorous parts of his writings.

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It was great.

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those shows are tons of fun.

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Now Mo so it was market, then we did some shows and then if you just go

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down to the traditional kind of main drag of Colonial Williamsburg, we

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started kind of down near the ice rink.

Jenn: 00:11:57

Yeah, so we show what does Williamsburg would look like at Christmas

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time and a lot of the decoration, cuz that's what you're gonna see that's

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different is all the wreaths and the garlands that are on the doors

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and, and banisters and it's a lot.

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And I talk about what are they decorating with and it's a lot of like a natural.

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Food sources and plant life because they're gonna decorate with what they can

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find locally as they can gather and make in their kitchens and they can kind of

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string together branches and pine cones.

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And I talk about the oysters.

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And, and that was one of the things that I actually kind of like about

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our video that I bet you won't see on a lot of kind of similar kind of videos.

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If someone goes and talks about Colonial Williamsburg and Christmas you can

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kind of walk around and just look at these decorations on the doors.

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It's like, oh, cool decoration.

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Jen, , you did a good job of really saying, here's why these doors

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are decorated in this manner.

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Because people would look at 'em and you could tell they were kind of doing double

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takes or looking longer because there'd be a wreath with like a big circle of apples.

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Yes.

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You're like, why is there a big circle of apples on there?

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And you explained that.

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Why?

Jenn: 00:13:03

So it, like I told you, the Christmas in colonial times

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is a lot like thanksgiving.

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So you're, you're showing your thankfulness, you're showing your

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appreciation for your abundance.

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So if you had a good crop, Or you had a good you know, harvest, harvest of apples,

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you're gonna take those and decorate with them and to show a, you know, how well

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you did and to be thankful for next year.

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the perfect example was the first place winner one that we, that

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we showed the bread and the wheat.

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And

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So the, yeah, the winner is beautiful and they made a basket

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of bread with wheat beside it.

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And so it's, again, they're showing, they're giving thanks for to God,

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you know, cuz it's Christmas.

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So they're being thankful for, and their religion for the.

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Basically the new year and the 12 days of Christmas, we did interact

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with an interact with a Reenactor.

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The Attorney General of

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Williamsburg

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Yeah, we didn't talk about that in the video, so, so this is

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more special for the podcast and

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So I told him Happy Christmas.

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And he goes, it's a little early for that.

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And I said, oh, when would you say it?

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And he goes, you would say it on Christmas day and then the 12 days after Christmas.

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Cuz we, we were there for my birthday.

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The 9th of December.

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So that was early, he said, and then he asked, who do I have

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the pleasure of speaking with?

Jenn: 00:14:23

And I said, well, his commander in the rural Navy , because it's 8 17 60.

Jenn: 00:14:27

Right?

Jenn: 00:14:27

So this is like British Navy,

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British Times.

Jenn: 00:14:30

so royal navy.

Jenn: 00:14:30

So he was very, very, he wanted to talk about that.

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He's like, oh, the royal Navy

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Yeah.

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He like tipped his hat to me and Yes.

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Then he started asking us about this

Jenn: 00:14:39

This captain, yeah.

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Who wanted to date his daughters

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He's like, do you by chance, do you know Captain Parker?

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You know of the Royal Navy?

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And I told him I kind of.

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Played along.

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I was like, well, I'm relatively new, to the area, so he starts talking

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about this captain who's like pursuing his daughters because of his position.

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And so it was very entertaining.

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He, and he kind of went right into it, like he walked by us and yeah.

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And then just kind of started chatting us up.

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So I, that's one of the things I really love about Colonial

Jenn: 00:15:04

Williamsburg is the Interactors.

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So that goes into our amazing dinner.

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So that goes into our amazing dinner.

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That, so we had dinner with Martha and George Washington

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So the same actors who played in the play or earlier were Martha had

Jenn: 00:15:20

played Martha and George for our dinner.

Jenn: 00:15:22

Now they were 10 years later, wasn't it like 1770?

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Yeah.

Scott: 00:15:28

69 or something like that.

Jenn: 00:15:29

And so at that time, George is getting out of the military.

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The seven years war just happened.

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So the French and Indian War, he hates the French.

Scott: 00:15:38

but they're, they're dressed for a ball.

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They're dressed for a ball, and there actually is.

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So in Colonial Williamsburg, that's one of the things you

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could have gotten tickets for.

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Thank you for not doing that because I, I would've felt incredibly awkward.

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But we, we were chatting with a couple across from us.

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They actually.

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They took, they finished the dinner and they ended up going

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to this, this, to this ball.

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But they were dressed, I was actually really impressed by their whole garb.

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I mean, he had this full on white colonial jacket, jacket, kind of

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the thread uniform style suit.

Scott: 00:16:07

, and then her gown was,

Jenn: 00:16:10

gown.

Jenn: 00:16:10

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:16:11

So like the, the two piece gown with the hoops Yeah.

Jenn: 00:16:14

On the side, like a very French, very bridger tin with the feathers

Jenn: 00:16:18

hair up with the feathers.

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And there she was wearing a powdered wig.

Jenn: 00:16:21

He was not, he's still young George.

Jenn: 00:16:23

And George, I don't think George Washington ever

Jenn: 00:16:25

wore a wig, if I'm correct.

Jenn: 00:16:27

His hair went white.

Jenn: 00:16:27

And that was always just his hair.

Jenn: 00:16:29

He never, I don't think he ever wore a wig.

Jenn: 00:16:30

But

Scott: 00:16:31

would, they would come in and out during dinner.

Scott: 00:16:32

Yeah.

Scott: 00:16:32

So they kind of, the courses would be brought out for us.

Scott: 00:16:35

This is, this was her birthday, so this was, this is not

Scott: 00:16:38

cheap . But it was really cool.

Scott: 00:16:40

We ended up having a grand time.

Scott: 00:16:42

Yes.

Scott: 00:16:42

And they would kind of come in and out and talk about the different

Scott: 00:16:45

things that were going on.

Scott: 00:16:46

Interact with us a little bit, let let people ask

Scott: 00:16:48

questions.

Scott: 00:16:48

It was, it was actually a ton of fun.

Jenn: 00:16:50

and the meal we were served was the menu.

Jenn: 00:16:53

If you watch Hamilton.

Jenn: 00:16:55

Thomas Jefferson talks about having the dinner with Hamilton and Madison

Jenn: 00:16:59

when they decide where to put the capitol, and he is like, I picked

Jenn: 00:17:03

the menu, the venue, the seating.

Jenn: 00:17:05

That was

Scott: 00:17:06

room.

Scott: 00:17:06

The whole song.

Scott: 00:17:06

The room where

Jenn: 00:17:07

where it happened, the room where it happened when no one knows what happened

Jenn: 00:17:09

inside the room, but everyone knows where and what they ate and who was there.

Jenn: 00:17:14

We ate what they

Scott: 00:17:15

Yeah.

Scott: 00:17:15

So that,

Jenn: 00:17:16

recreated that

Scott: 00:17:16

It says it right on the menu.

Scott: 00:17:18

This is the menu that thomas Jefferson had, you know, for this, for this

Jenn: 00:17:23

Hamilton and Madison.

Jenn: 00:17:24

So it was good.

Jenn: 00:17:25

It was like a greens and then it was like ham wrapped in bacon.

Jenn: 00:17:30

Yeah.

Scott: 00:17:30

And then some like roast beef

Jenn: 00:17:31

type and then a roast beef and then like a pastry with ice cream.

Scott: 00:17:34

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:17:35

And then they served

Scott: 00:17:36

There was a lot of wine.

Jenn: 00:17:37

It's a lot of wine.

Jenn: 00:17:38

. And then we finished up with a witch trial.

Jenn: 00:17:42

So we saw, so if you look at our video of Grace Sherwood, the witch

Jenn: 00:17:47

who was ducked in Virginia, the last witch child of Virginia, they do her

Jenn: 00:17:52

witch trial at Colonial Williamsburg.

Jenn: 00:17:54

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:17:55

Because it's so close.

Jenn: 00:17:56

And it is, it's, it's famous.

Jenn: 00:17:58

It's famous.

Jenn: 00:17:58

Pretty famous.

Jenn: 00:17:59

And they allow you to interact in the witch

Scott: 00:18:01

They, yeah.

Scott: 00:18:02

So during, they have the trial, so you actually get to walk into.

Scott: 00:18:06

. It wasn't like the, the main courthouse, it was a different

Jenn: 00:18:09

It was the Capitol building

Scott: 00:18:10

courthouse.

Scott: 00:18:10

The Capitol building courthouse.

Scott: 00:18:12

So you get to walk in there and there's probably 20 or 30 people in there.

Scott: 00:18:16

And so we're all listening and they have Reenacters coming in that

Scott: 00:18:18

are actually acting out this whole court case, and people are saying,

Scott: 00:18:22

oh, she's a witch because she'd be witched, me and my pigs died and it's

Scott: 00:18:25

her fault, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Scott: 00:18:26

And then they, they let the, the townspeople ask questions.

Jenn: 00:18:30

Like we're all gentlemen.

Jenn: 00:18:32

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:18:32

Because no women would really be there.

Jenn: 00:18:34

So he says, you're all gentlemen for this evening.

Jenn: 00:18:37

And to be a person who gets to decide a vote in this time period, this is 1709 or

Scott: 00:18:45

Yeah, it's much, much earlier, way before Washington and all

Jenn: 00:18:48

1709.

Jenn: 00:18:48

You have to be male, you have to be white, you have to.

Jenn: 00:18:53

Over 20 and you have to be a landowner to be able to vote.

Jenn: 00:19:00

So that's, that was what he said.

Jenn: 00:19:03

We all were.

Jenn: 00:19:04

And so we were allowed to ask questions and we were allowed to kind of interact.

Jenn: 00:19:08

But it was so funny.

Jenn: 00:19:09

Scott was like, your pigs died.

Jenn: 00:19:11

She's a witch.

Jenn: 00:19:12

Witch.

Jenn: 00:19:13

And honestly, we, we both kept saying, witch, let's get outta here.

Jenn: 00:19:16

Witch

Scott: 00:19:17

good.

Scott: 00:19:18

It, it was, it was, it was again, a surprising amount of fun.

Scott: 00:19:21

So, so that was kind of the first day.

Scott: 00:19:23

The next day when we came back, we took the kids through the Christmas market.

Scott: 00:19:29

So one of the, the cool things, if you end up going and it's again the

Scott: 00:19:33

first three Saturdays in December from five to 7:00 PM but get there

Scott: 00:19:37

a little bit earlier cuz there's gonna be a lot, lot of people there.

Scott: 00:19:39

Not anywhere, but.

Scott: 00:19:40

Quarter to five.

Scott: 00:19:41

So at 4:45 PM they start the initial actual proclamation from

Scott: 00:19:46

the main courthouse on that main street, the Duke of Glo Street.

Scott: 00:19:51

And so they actually had, we were kind of standing there, we start walking

Scott: 00:19:54

over to the courthouse and I was just trying to get some pictures and all

Scott: 00:19:57

of a sudden about like 40, you know, young men dressed, with like fivesome

Scott: 00:20:03

drums, all of a sudden they come out and they just line up in front.

Scott: 00:20:05

I'm like, oh, great.

Scott: 00:20:06

So if you see in the video, I'm right up front.

Scott: 00:20:08

That wasn't planned.

Scott: 00:20:09

I, I, that was just kind of a stroke of luck I got right up front.

Scott: 00:20:13

And they start doing, like, they were very organized.

Scott: 00:20:16

They were.

Scott: 00:20:16

I was surprised at how good they

Jenn: 00:20:17

organize.

Jenn: 00:20:17

They were very good.

Jenn: 00:20:18

And they do a proclamation

Scott: 00:20:19

do a proclamation and then they kind of break it up.

Scott: 00:20:22

So if you watch our video, that's that very first shot.

Scott: 00:20:24

And then we, we reintroduce it a little bit later, but you hang out

Scott: 00:20:27

there for about 15 minutes while they're kind of putting on their show.

Scott: 00:20:30

Yeah.

Scott: 00:20:30

And then from there, they end up marching around to all these

Scott: 00:20:34

different spots around the.

Scott: 00:20:35

The bigger buildings in Colonial Williamsburg, and they do

Scott: 00:20:39

various proclamations all around.

Scott: 00:20:41

We didn't see all of them because there was multiple ones going on in different

Jenn: 00:20:44

there's a lot of people.

Jenn: 00:20:45

So a lot of people and people will be camped out on the Palace

Jenn: 00:20:50

Green to get a good view of the.

Jenn: 00:20:54

Fireworks.

Jenn: 00:20:54

So it's kind of hard to kind of navigate around the Palace Green, but

Jenn: 00:20:59

we were able to see the bells in front.

Jenn: 00:21:03

I think it was William and Mary.

Scott: 00:21:05

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:05

So, so William and Mary, right.

Scott: 00:21:07

The the college is, is right down the way.

Jenn: 00:21:09

and then we saw like the glee club.

Scott: 00:21:11

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:11

There was some sort of glee club or some acapella group.

Scott: 00:21:14

It's in the video.

Scott: 00:21:15

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:15

Again, some church kind of put on like a whole show with like, they were

Scott: 00:21:18

actually playing Christmas songs, but with like these various sized bells,

Scott: 00:21:22

and then at 7:00 PM we get to see the fireworks.

Jenn: 00:21:25

and the fireworks was so cool.

Jenn: 00:21:26

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:21:27

But we'll, let me make a recommendation to you.

Jenn: 00:21:29

If you go and do this and you're hungry.

Jenn: 00:21:32

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:21:33

There will be food booths that are like more well known that have long lines.

Jenn: 00:21:39

But I think for this grand illumination, there'll be certain organizations

Jenn: 00:21:44

that do little pop-up food booths.

Scott: 00:21:46

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:47

Or just like, they're almost more

Jenn: 00:21:48

fundraisers.

Jenn: 00:21:49

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:21:49

Like

Scott: 00:21:49

fundraiser.

Scott: 00:21:50

We were waiting in this super

Jenn: 00:21:51

Go to those

Scott: 00:21:52

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:52

We were waiting in this super long line, for, to get something made.

Scott: 00:21:55

And I just kinda look across the way and it looks like you, it's later in the

Scott: 00:21:59

evening and I just kind of zip over there and it's stuff that they had pre-heated,

Scott: 00:22:02

pre-made or whatever like that.

Scott: 00:22:04

But if you're just traipsing around and you'd ha probably with that many people

Scott: 00:22:09

down there, you're gonna have a hard time getting into any of the restaurants.

Scott: 00:22:12

So bring food.

Scott: 00:22:13

But

Scott: 00:22:13

That was definitely kind of a, a good hack for us.

Scott: 00:22:16

If you don't, if you don't bring food with you, look around a little bit because you,

Scott: 00:22:19

you don't have to wait in a super long

Jenn: 00:22:21

got corn dogs for all of us and some pretzels, pretzels.

Jenn: 00:22:24

And we were fine and we didn't have to wait.

Jenn: 00:22:26

And the, by the time we were done eating the place I was in line, still

Jenn: 00:22:29

hadn't gotten to the front window yet.

Scott: 00:22:31

And there's tons of people ice skating right down

Scott: 00:22:34

there in the heart of Colonial Williamsburg, which is really cool.

Scott: 00:22:36

Yeah.

Scott: 00:22:36

And just, they don't have, one thing that I thought they were

Scott: 00:22:40

gonna have that they didn't was actually Christmas style lights.

Scott: 00:22:44

I thought they were actually gonna have lights on the buildings.

Scott: 00:22:46

That's not what it was.

Scott: 00:22:48

Which actually I appreciated after the fact because it, it felt more

Scott: 00:22:51

colonial, more, more a little bit like you were walking back in.

Scott: 00:22:55

Without that.

Scott: 00:22:56

So that was my initial expectation.

Scott: 00:22:57

Yeah.

Scott: 00:22:58

But I wasn't disappointed when I didn't see that.

Scott: 00:23:00

I just didn't know what to expect.

Scott: 00:23:02

And these proclamations were pretty fun because they would be, you know,

Scott: 00:23:06

reading whatever the proclamation is and they would lead like three cheers,

Scott: 00:23:09

you know, and they hip, hip hazah.

Scott: 00:23:11

So everybody said, like our oldest, you'll hear 'em, he's like saying, ha.

Scott: 00:23:14

Yeah.

Scott: 00:23:14

So it was, it was a ton of fun.

Scott: 00:23:15

And we ended up sitting on the Palace Green.

Jenn: 00:23:17

sat on the grass and then we found

Scott: 00:23:19

a spot.

Scott: 00:23:19

We just found a random spot.

Scott: 00:23:20

It wasn't so crowded that you couldn't do that.

Jenn: 00:23:23

I think now because I break it up into the three

Jenn: 00:23:25

nights that it's not as crowded.

Jenn: 00:23:28

Like, like I said, the first three Saturdays of December

Jenn: 00:23:31

five to seven because they break it up, it's not as crowded.

Jenn: 00:23:34

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:23:34

And again, we wouldn't have known about it unless we went to that veterans center and

Jenn: 00:23:37

he told us, you should come back tomorrow.

Scott: 00:23:39

Yeah.

Scott: 00:23:39

We had kind of initially brushed it off, we're like, ah, maybe.

Scott: 00:23:42

And he kind of kept talking it up

Jenn: 00:23:44

like, no, you'll wanna see this.

Jenn: 00:23:45

This is a big deal.

Jenn: 00:23:46

And we're like, and then I think I, we saw some video and I

Jenn: 00:23:50

said, maybe this is a big deal.

Jenn: 00:23:53

Let's go check it out.

Jenn: 00:23:54

And it was, it was worth It

Scott: 00:23:55

was worth it.

Scott: 00:23:56

And it's worth it.

Scott: 00:23:56

And it's nice because you could do fireworks at 7:00 PM It's already dark.

Scott: 00:24:00

Yeah.

Scott: 00:24:00

You're done by seven 20.

Scott: 00:24:02

Like we live about 45 minutes away.

Scott: 00:24:04

, we're home by eight 30.

Jenn: 00:24:05

was

Scott: 00:24:05

it wasn't bad at

Jenn: 00:24:06

Yeah, it was great with kids, cuz usually for 4th of July you have

Jenn: 00:24:09

to stay up late with your kids because the sun doesn't go down till late.

Jenn: 00:24:13

But because the sun sets so early, it was, it was pitch black and perfect,

Scott: 00:24:18

but it, again, it was as a ton of fun and with those torches lining

Scott: 00:24:23

the streets and with the fireworks, it just, it, it felt so much more

Scott: 00:24:29

colonial with that back in time, like you're walking back in time because

Scott: 00:24:32

it's not very often throughout the year where they actually light all of those

Scott: 00:24:36

torches because, Ba basically I have someone watching each and every single

Jenn: 00:24:39

one

Scott: 00:24:40

to make sure grass doesn't catch on fire.

Scott: 00:24:41

So it was, it was an absolute blast and I highly recommend

Scott: 00:24:45

it to anybody that wants to

Jenn: 00:24:46

Ago.

Jenn: 00:24:46

I highly recommend it too.

Jenn: 00:24:48

And since watching this, since doing that, I was, it was been brought to

Jenn: 00:24:53

my attention that Perry Komo filmed a special in Williamsburg in the seventies.

Jenn: 00:25:00

I think it's probably as old as me, , cuz I was born in 77 and I

Jenn: 00:25:05

think it was filmed in 77 because his special guest is John Wayne.

Jenn: 00:25:09

And John Wayne passes away the year I was born.

Jenn: 00:25:12

So, A couple years after I was born.

Jenn: 00:25:15

So, I'm going to do a whole talk with history about what it looks

Jenn: 00:25:18

like today compared to that video and if you wanna see more of what.

Jenn: 00:25:24

Colonial Williamsburg looked like back then with Perry Commo, who

Jenn: 00:25:28

is actually from my hometown in Pennsylvania and the Duke, who I love.

Jenn: 00:25:34

Check it out.

Jenn: 00:25:34

It's on YouTube, but I will, I'm gonna commentate it on

Scott: 00:25:38

yeah, I gotta, I gotta figure out how to do that so that it may

Scott: 00:25:40

be a little bit I'll, I'll give it a shot over our Christmas break.

Scott: 00:25:43

We'll see if we can put something together,

Jenn: 00:25:44

it's very cool.

Jenn: 00:25:45

And Christmasy as well.

Scott: 00:25:46

Yeah.

Scott: 00:25:46

Well, for those who are watching and for those who are listening, thank you

Scott: 00:25:50

so much for listening to the Talk With History podcast and please reach out to

Scott: 00:25:54

us at our website, talk with history.com.

Scott: 00:25:55

But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this podcast or the

Scott: 00:25:59

video version, please share it with them.

Scott: 00:26:01

And especially if you think that they would enjoy something about

Scott: 00:26:03

Colonial Williamsburg, shoot 'em a text and tell 'em to look us up.

Scott: 00:26:07

We rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate y'all every day.

Scott: 00:26:10

Talk to you next time.

Jenn: 00:26:11

Time.

Jenn: 00:26:11

Happy

Jenn: 00:26:12

Christmas.