Lee Burneson Students Host Revolutionary Christmas Eve Party

eighth-graders partied like it was 1783 before heading out for the winter break, putting on a Revolutionary War era Christmas Eve party.

Students in Sally Fetko's social studies class recreated the historical Christmas Eve party at Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria where Gen. George Washington stopped on his way home to Mt. Vernon. The Treaty of Paris had been signed, and the Revolutionary War was over, and Washington was heading home, but not before stopping to celebrate the season with his old friends and neighbors.

The party was the culmination of the students' study of the Revolutionary War. Students not only dressed in full costume, but wrote and portrayed characters, learned colonial dances and created their own original sets.

Fetko, who once lived in Alexandra, has been hosting the party for 23 years, and said that Gadsby's is still a popular restaurant in Virignia.