November 9, 2007 Special holiday edition of the Journal features
the pageantry of the Christmas season “In 1492, Columbus sailed
the ocean blue.” In the special holiday edition of Colonial
Williamsburg, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s popular
history journal, editor Dennis Montgomery tells a story of one
of Christopher Columbus’ adventures during the voyage. In the
article, “The Town of the Nativity, Columbus’s Christmas City,”
Montgomery writes that the admiral landed in Hispaniola on
Christmas Eve. Although he believed he was in Japan, he
discovered what is now modern-day Haiti. Thirty-nine of his
sailors stayed behind and Columbus had unwittingly created the
first Spanish settlement of the New World. “The Great Play
Called Christmas” talks about the pageantry of the holiday
season. Contributor Michael Olmert discusses how folk tales and
the traditional Christmas story are told through theater
throughout the centuries. For instance, in 18th-century
Williamsburg, the Grammar School of the College of W