So I know I work at Colonial Williamsburg, but it's still one of my favorite places to go on my days off. As a Christmas present Brian the Engineer treated me to a weekend in the Historic Area between Christmas and New Year's. We ate some delicious food, sang and danced, and overall had a lovely time.
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| I do love seeing the fifes and drums. |
Of course I dressed up in my Colonial Christmas outfit on Saturday, and we found a few photo-ops throughout the day.
I wore all of the same pieces as my
Winter Wonderland photo shoot, with the addition of wool mitts and a false rump. I also shortened my petticoat by about 1 1/2" because it kept getting caught on my shoe buckles last time. The new length is much better, and I think the swallowtail jacket needed the little bump it got:
Looks much better than without the false rump, doesn't it?
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| Flat rump - so sad |
Fun fact: I totally McGyvered the rump using one of my spare stockings stuffed with all of the extra socks and tights I had packed for the weekend.
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| Isn't it lovely? |
I safety-pinned it to my inner petticoat and shifted the stuffing around until I liked the result.
I definitely need to make a real rump now. It makes such a difference! The only annoying thing about the day was that it wasn't really cold enough to need all my outerwear - unlike last time when I was dying for some mitts! Oh well. Leave it to a Midwesterner to complain that it's not cold enough. :p At least I wasn't uncomfortable when we took photos without the cloak.
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| Much better length on the petticoat. |
So I'm slowly improving my 18th Century items - next project is to line the muffs.
Then I need to re-do the cap, as the back isn't quite large enough. I really need to
add to my 18th Century wardrobe, though. Lots of plans for that this year. (Of course, that was my plan last year, too - shhh!)
We ate at Shield's Tavern for lunch.
I love eating in the taverns, for the atmosphere as much as for the delicious food!
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| Checking the ambiance levels... |
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| Who doesn't love to listen to live music while they eat? |
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| Gotta love that 18th Century Wood Chuck. |
We had to stop by the
First Oval Office project, where they were really close to finishing the tent!
And I can never pass up a chance to visit my favorite place in Williamsburg -
the
Margaret Hunter Shop.
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| Oh, for those silks! |
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| I love it when they have a miniature milliner's shop set up in the corner! |
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| I wish this were my scrap basket. |
Other than that, we mostly wandered the town checking out fun Christmas decorations.
But we did do some cool things, too! One of the programs running that day was a Victory Ball presentation, where we got to see some dances of the time. I even got asked to dance by the Compte de Rochambeau! We were not allowed to take pictures of this, sadly. But it did happen! And he complimented my mantua-maker! I was grinning like a fool.
We also gathered on the Palace Green to watch the Illumination of the historical houses just after sunset. Unfortunately most of my photos of this look like it was some sort of angry mob. :p
I was also very intrigued by this huge tree adorned with thousands of giant lights!
I had to go back after dark to see it all lit up!
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| It was magical. |
Brian got some fun atmospheric shots after dark, too.
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