Cherished Williamsburg Christmas Memories
While we enjoy making new traditions now in Colorado Springs, one of our FAVORITE holiday traditions of all time is visiting Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Linda has always loved this iconic city as her mother was a teacher who loved sharing its history and it’s also where we had our first date.
Carriage rides, museum tours, and historic reenactments of colonial life are just a small part of our fascination with this wonderful destination. But while colonial mansions decorated with festive greenery and fruit, actors dressed in colonial garb roaming the downtown streets, and original early American food are all part of its charm…why Williamsburg for Christmas?
Because it speaks of a time when our fore-bearers stopped and celebrated Jesus Christ. Whether by gathering the bounty from God’s creation from magnolia leaves, apples, or fallen pinecones to fashion wreaths and decorations, or joining family and friends around a table brimming with mouth-watering delicacies, the town itself stopped to celebrate the most important day in the history of the world, the birth of the world’s Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today we get bombarded with Santa, snowmen, and a barrage of secular representations of winter solstice rather than the true reality of Christmas, a time to celebrate the Christ child, “Emmanuel,” God with us.
Stripped in many ways of the tinsel and artificiality that now represents Christmas in America, Williamsburg reminds us of the simplicity of the season. As Linda mentioned in her Refreshed Women section of the newsletter last week, we are focusing this Christmas on awe and wonder.
Amid the rugged and often harsh realities of early America life, in Williamsburg colonists celebrated Christmas with joy. As we face the hatred, sorrow, and often harsh realities of modern American life, it is our privilege to stop and focus on the One who came and became one of us. He came so that we might know and experience His love for us. He died on a cross to pay the penalty for our rebellion against God’s rule and reign, and then rose again from the dead so that we can spend eternity alive with Him.
What better time to stop and stand in awe and wonder at His majesty and glory? As Eugene Peterson tells us in The Message, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” (John 1:14)
As you reflect on the cherished traditions you celebrate during this season, I hope you will stop and stand in awe and wonder with us that Jesus Christ chose to come, experience our reality, and promise each of us, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
We’d love to hear what some of your favorite places to visit at Christmas are. Email Linda at linda@YourRefreshedLife.com or Reen.waterman@navigators.org. Merry Christmas to one and all!
