Pleasant Living Magazine

The 16th Williamsburg Film Festival, honoring the Golden Age of Hollywood, will be held at the Holiday Inn- Patriot Hotel and Convention Center, 3032 Richmond Road, Williamsburg, VA 23185, from March 7 through March 10, 2012.

This year, celebrities appearing in person will include Richard Erdman, Gary Hudson, Mickey Kuhn, Marilyn Mason, Terry Moore, Tommy Nolan, John Saxon and Peggy Stewart, with True West magazine editor and author, Bob Boze Bell. Celebrities will be interviewed on stage daily by film historians and will sign autographs. Nightly entertainment will feature The Virginia Rounders and Elvis tribute artist, Sterling Riggs.

The award-winning western singer, R.W. Hampton, will headline the Saturday night dinner program.

Vintage films and television programs will be presented daily in two screening rooms throughout the festival and will include a selection of special presentations by motion picture experts. A spacious Dealer Memorabilia Room will provide for sale a large selection of posters, lobby cards, cinematic stills, comics, 16 mm. films, DVDs, toys, books, magazines, records, CDs, autographed photographs, leather goods and other memorabilia.

As winter’s cold temperatures and icy winds settle over the countryside, Urbanna residents may be piling logs on the fire, but they certainly aren’t losing any steam. The picturesque streets and waterways of this corner of the world provide the perfect backdrop for dozens of wintertime activities that will be fondly remembered when the mercury hits the triple digits.

Urbanna’s art and antiques scene, which includes such notable spots as Nimcock Gallery and Rolling Road Gallery, is celebrated throughout the state and has recently been enhanced by the addition of Urbanna Harbor Gallery & Art Services. A leisurely stroll to view fine art and rummage through relics of days past can provide some welcome mental and physical stimulation to people tired of being cooped up indoors.

For a group outing that will please all tastes, head over to Pieces of Peper, where jewelry-smith Peper Heunemann offers classes all winter long. Accommodating up to five students, Heunemann’s classes help participants produce jewelry, ornaments and charms in copper, brass, or silver. The best part? "When the student leaves the class, they have a finished piece in their hand," says Heunemann.

The Bay School Community Arts Center will exhibit extended works from a local watercolor artist, Wilma T. Bradner.  Wilma works primarily in watercolor, which is often compared to stained glass.  She includes glazes in her work rather than mixing the colors on the palette in order to let the beauty of the colors shine through.

Wilma is also a founding member and current treasurer of the Virginia Equine Artists Association .  She is involved in promoting Virginia Artists that portray the horse in all its many forms.  From the immense, whether a family pet, a working partner, a performer or all of the above, they provide Wilma a source of inspiration and a desire to capture their beauty.

Wilma's works will be on exhibit at the Bay School from 12/1 through 12/21.  For more information, call the Bay School at 804-725-1278 or visit http://www.bayschool-arts.com/

It was the Yuletide season of 1895, and the Eubank Hotel in Kilmarnock glowed with candlelight and twinkling eyes. Amidst the lilt of banjos and violins, dancers in their finest party attire were swirling about the room when John Armistead Palmer placed a chair beneath the chandelier and standing above the crowd, held a sprig of holly over the head of Miss Cora Brent. When he spoke, a hush came over the room. "I crown thee, Queen Cora, Empress of the Holly Realm," and with his decree a tradition was born.

To assure that the tradition of the Holly Realm would endure throughout the years, Mr. Palmer traded one of his choice Jersey calves for a beautiful, berry- laden holly tree located on the farm of James Carter along Good Luck Road near the border of Lancaster and Northumberland counties. The deed stated that this tree would be "in trust for the use and benefit of the Queen of the Holly Realm and her duly appointed successors in office for all times."

From the merriment of those twenty some couples at the Eubank Hotel in 1895 was born a tradition that continues today in Tidewater Virginia’s Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, a candlelight ball that remains one of the oldest such occasions in America.