This past weekend was a shared birthday for my son and me.  We have long dreamed of celebrating at the annual Prelude to Victory event at Colonial Williamsburg. We left Friday for Yorktown Battlefield in preparation for the event, then went to CW in the late afternoon. That evening I was seranaded by historic musicians for my birthday at Christiana Campbell's Tavern. That was definitely unique! Then the rest of the weekend was for my son.  How much fun for a boy to be surrounded by cannons, artillery, (in other words, lots of noise!) and a surprise meeting with his favorite actor!  We arrived home late last night and had a wonderful time making new memories, many of which revolve around my son's "new" costume.

     Since we moved from Texas to Northern Virginia last spring, we have not acclimated to the colder weather. Although the autumn leaves are a fresh treat for our birthdays, the huge temperature ranges are doing us in.  Recently, I have been trying to figure out how to help my kids survive the colder weather in Colonial Williamsburg, while they are in costume. Even though I have purchased fabric for historic cloaks for them to wear over their costumes, I haven't had time to complete them before our big birthday trip down to CW last weekend.  To complicate matters, my son has grown five inches since moving to Virginia!  He can barely get into his old costume anymore. He has been wanting me to make a new colonial costume for him, but I haven't had time to do that either. One day I realized that his Lafayette costume had been hanging in the closet and should fit perfectly.  Also, it has extra layers of fabric, so he'd be warmer.  That was good because there were some chilly moments last weekend.  Nevertheless my son did tell me he was glad I would make a cape for him, when he felt the evening chill settle in.  

     Sounds like we're on the right track, right? Well, what would other people think of him wearing a major general costume?  We worried about how this would go over at Colonial Williamsburg. We certainly did not want to be presumptious in having him portray Lafayette at CW. That was merely his assignment for a school project a year ago when we studied Yorktown.

 We agree that there can only be one "Lafayette!"  In fact, that is why my son had the costume in the first place. While studying Yorktown, I assigned my son to do a first person interpretation of someone who was at Yorktown and give his perspective of the future. This was an assignment I had found in the Electronic Field Trip packet and I was going to allow him to simply make a rough draft and present this for his dad that weekend. He not only chose Lafayette, but also asked for a costume.  Wilting from all of my other costume projects, I decided to make the Lafayette costume, if it meant encouraging his history studies.  He doesn't normally dig into history books, so I sewed the costume while he dug away!  I used a combination of contemporary patterns and vacation pictures of the CW Lafayette to put the costume together. 

     After much thought, my son decided he could honestly say that he was supporting the troops. I thought that was good, but what if it didn't work?  After all when we attended Under the Redcoat last June, my children were nearly arrested. This time I had visions of the Continental Army arresting him for impersonating an officer. (My dad and husband are both retired USAF, so we understand these things.)  I decided that I would take the 21st century slant and explain, if needed, that it's the only costume we had in the closet that fits and helps to keep him warm. (My kids and I are always trying to stay in the 18th century as much as possible, which is a huge challenge when 21st century things are occuring!)  Well, my son definitely got a lot of reactions to his costume, especially from all of the actor interpreters! On top of that, Lafayette himself approached him concerning this matter. Stay tuned for the details!