Making "Williamsburg" Christmas Decorations

On December 4 we had a great time at New Quarter Park making Christmas decorations with all sorts of greenery collected from our yards and wooded areas. I had Arlene Williams of Morrison's Flowers and Gifts lead our monthly program. About 30 people showed up to listen to her explain how to design decorations with natural materials. Afterward, she turned us lose to select greenery from the assortment that she and I brought to the park for the program. Everyone made a centerpiece or door swag to take home.

To make a door swag, I bought a rectangular cage filled with florist foam, stuck the key accent greenery in place in the foam, then filled in all around with many different kinds of greenery. Arlene's assistant made the bow for me, but I watched and repeated the process later. 

Because I've lived in eastern Virginia most of my life and because I've worked for Colonial Williamsburg in the past, I've always used a lot of simple greenery to decorate for Christmas. A little boxwood here, a little holly there. But I've never really been as inspired to do so much of the Williamsburg Christmas thing until this year. After making the big door swag, seen above and right, during the park program, I came home to clip more greenery and wire together decorations for the mail box and banister along the sidewalk and steps. I put more greenery inside in the windows with favorite ornaments and small photos. 

Making the more swags is much easier to do than I had thought. Simply clip and layer a variety of greenery. For the mailbox piece, I wired together magnolia, cedar, red-tip photinia, and boxwood from my yard. Two sprays were wired together, end to end, and I made a bow to cover the wiring and accent the center.

A former Colonial Williamsburg colleague, Mary Theobald, and current Williamsburg Farmers Market manager, Libbey Oliver, wrote a wonderful book about Williamsburg Christmas decorating tradition. Although the book is out of print, a lot of the information is online.

Mary researched the historical information. She tells what we do and don't know about colonial Christmas decorating traditions. The short of it is that Christmas was largely a religious holiday without all of the decorating, gift-giving, and over-blown festivity that we attach to it today. Yes, there were sprigs of holly in the windows and families gathered for meals and music. The Williamsburg Christmas tradition of boxwood and fruit covered wreaths that we know today was an invention of an early Colonial Williamsburg employee who was charged with attracting more people to the history museum during Christmas vacation time. The wreaths that are associated with a Williamsburg Christmas today were inspired by the work of 15th-century Italian sculptors of the della Robbia school.