The sound of musket and cannon fire will ring across Colonial Williamsburg’s Market Square at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve, as the annual day-before-Christmas celebration at the living history museum commences.
The event, which is free and open to the public, culminates with the lighting of a 40-foot Norway spruce tree covered with 6,000 lights.
Visitors will experience the sounds of the barrage as the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes and Drums play music around the Courthouse on Duke of Gloucester Street.
Once the guns and cannons fall silent, Clement Clark Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas will be read aloud as volunteers and members of the Kiwanis Club of Williamsburg hand out candles.
Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman will give the signal to light the candles, with the flame passing from one to the next until Duke of Gloucester Street is alight with candle fire, according to a news release from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
After the singing of Christmas carols, Haulman will flip a switch to light a 40-foot Norway spruce tree covered with 6,000 lights. The event will end at 6 p.m. after a benediction and another traditional song.
The foundation and the Kiwanis Club have cosponsored the Christmas tree lighting at market square since 1959.
