Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg

Now, for those of you who care, I'll provide an overview (in installments) of our visit to Colonial Williamsburg; what "they" call the "original" capital of "Virginia". Where, clearly, "I" invested my money wisely in quotation marks and parentheses - or "brackets" in Aussie speak.

Lori's sister, Phatty (or Judi Arbuckle), and mum (or Carol Shaw) joined us for the big trip (or trip). We all gathered at our place on Thursday evening, loaded up the little 4 door rental car with sufficient foodstuffs to have fed the original settlements of Colonial Willimsburg and Jamestown for a year and headed south, arriving about midnight at our two bedroom "holiday home" at the Greensprings Plantation (timeshare) Resort. Thanks to Phatty for trading her time!

Unfortunately everyone was sick except Lori but that didn't dampen the hilarity at all; see, even the male manniquin in this photo is amused (or deceased, we can't really tell). The next day we bounded out of bed bright and early (approximately 10 am) and prepared to get ready to move in the general direction of the door by around lunch time and so we headed off to Colonial Williamsburg around 1 pm. I heard a lot of talk around this place, things like, "it's over there off 395" and, "no, you idiot - I said 395!" and, "it's not my fault someone printed the map upside down". But seriously, it is very bright, cheery and dynamic in North Carolina at Christmas time.

Based on the extensive research I did while driving everyone down to the Colonial Williamsburg I know a little bit about its origins (extremely little). So I've decided to adopt Stephen Colbert's approach to the subject and apply a liberal dose of "truthiness" to my narrative. I've determined that Williamsburg was not actually the first capital of Virginia at all. Many people don't know this but the title was actually won from Jamestown (named after Sir James Town, the local convenience shop owner who sold fruit and fizzy drinks to the settlers when they first arrived in the new world), in a raucous, drunken late night cricket match played in 1699. Well, you can imagine everyone's surprise the morning after when they read in the papers through bleary eyes that their old rival Middle Plantation (as Colonial Williamsburg was then known) had clinched the title and had edged out Jamestown as the capital.

So the little community of Middle Plantation decided it need a more impressive name and decided on "Dish" so they could get free cable. Actually that was a town in Texas. Middle Plantation's residents decided to rename their town after the local college that had just opened, which was named after the ruling King and Queen of England at the time. So in honor of the Dutch consort of the ruling queen of England, it was named "Colonial Williamsburg" after King Colonial the Incontinent.

END OF INSTALLMENT 1 (I HEARD those sighs of relief!!)