Williamsburg is all decked out in the festivities of Christmas! Well known as the place to come at Christmastime if you want to experience an "old-fashioned," Colonial-type holiday, the most visibly unique mark of the area at this time of year is its impressive display of wreaths. Wreaths of all types, shapes, sizes and ingredients. Some made of dried fruit, like pomegranates and oranges, others of artificial fruit like crabapples and pineapples. Some have shells, garlic cloves or sweetgum balls. It's pretty amazing what they think of to use--and it sort of puts all our little green ones with red bows to shame! Here are just a few:
Early in December, on the 2nd to be precise, we attended one of the main events of the Williamsburg Christmas experience: the Grand Illumination. The event consists of a Grand Crowd of People on a very cold night in December, who stand and watch three sets of fireworks being shot off at the same time (one set from the Capitol, one from the Governor's Palace, and one from the Powder Magazine). Afterward, there is a Grand Traffic Jam of everyone trying to leave town to get back to wherever in the world they came from. Here is a not-so-great picture of the fireworks:
Yes, we have our Christmas tree up. We got it up around the 8th or so; it's a white pine, cut freshly from a local farm. It only took about 6 hours to figure out how to arrange our living room, dining room and family room such that we could actually fit this monster of a thing in our house (it doesn't look too big here, but it really is rather round and fat, making it hard to fit anywhere except the largest possible corner of the room):
If this blog entry seems fragmented, it is; we haven't, as you know, posted in a while, and that's because we've been--like you, probably!--very busy lately, so I'm trying to catch you all up on what's been happening. Ben is currently at the tail-end of his semester, and he has also been on the computer 24/7 (okay, maybe 22/7, allowing for his 2 hours of sleep a night--and that's not a joke for at least two nights in the past two weeks!), so that has made it hard to post as well. I am not sure which of the two of us will be more glad when this first semester's papers are complete--him, or me--his editor?!
Anyway, to give Ben time to write and think through all his schoolwork, I left for Atlanta on the 6th, unbeknownst to my little brothers. Daniel had just turned 17, and Matthew and he were both going to be playing in a Christmas band concert the night of the 6th. So, I showed up at their concert and surprised them--and yes, they were surprised, wondering what I was doing there! Here is a photo from just after the concert:
Now, the other thing that happened while I was in Atlanta--besides playing games, shopping, and stuff like that--was that Daniel and my dad took me to their favorite wildlife area to go fishing on Saturday. This was, of course, as much for their enjoyment as mine! Much to my surprise (and everyone's, I think), I caught a big largemouth bass within the first half hour or so! It was 14.5 inches long and probably around 1.5 pounds. Not too bad for an amateur fisherwoman like me:
Of course, Daniel was not to be outdone by his sister. Toward the end of the trip, he caught a SLIGHTLY larger largemouth bass that was just slightly fatter than mine. Turns out, it was a female with eggs, and that was why. We kept both and cooked them the next day, and they tasted quite good.
One thing that was impossible to miss during our fishing expedition was the toll the drought has taken on the lakes in GA. They are like mud holes, not lakes! The one we fished at was SO low that a 5-foot-high dock was about 10 to 15 feet from even touching the edge of the water. Pretty crazy. Here are a couple of pictures that kind of give you an idea of how bad it looks:
That's all for now. This weekend, we're celebrating my 27th birthday (man I'm old!) by going to Colonial Williamsburg to walk around, having a nice dinner out, and then going to see the Nutcracker Suite. The rest of the weekend will consist of Ben working furiously away on his "final thesis draft," which is due Monday. The coming week promises to remain busy up until our departure for Christmas travels to see my family. We'll write again after we return, if not before. Merry Christmas to all! -Jenny (and Ben)
Inside the archives - Ben's dad pretends to find an amazing discovery in the archival material (we'll have to leave it to Ben as to whether there was actually any ground-breaking information within his research):
