JOANNE: Today, we're at the Colonial Williamsburg Landscape Design Studio where the beautiful holiday decorations are made.

The size and scope of creating the holiday decorations for the historic area, it's quite large and all-encompassing, actually.

The style is very much true to Colonial Williamsburg.

But it's just the volume.

It's not just a few buildings.

We are decorating a real colonial town.

The designers will actually start working on their dry decorations in September.

One of the questions I get is, did the colonists decorate as we do today?

And the answer is no.

There was very little decorating if anything at all, and certainly nothing outdoors and certainly not a wreath with fresh fruit hanging on the door.

Guests really sort of wanted to see something.

So a compromise was reached that what we would present is a natural old-fashioned kind of Christmas and only using materials that would've been familiar to the colonists.

Now over time, our decorations have really evolved and they've become quite elaborate today.

It's just a tradition, and it is what Colonial Williamsburg is known for.

Common materials that we're using are...

In our dried category, we use dried pomegranates and scored oranges and orange slices, some dried herbs.

We use lotus pods and a lot of pine cones.

So the typical fresh fruit that we use, primarily we're using apples because apples last the longest and stay the freshest looking.

We'll also use limes and lemons, and you'll see pineapples on some of the decorations.

There is a nod to the history, but our designers have the freedom and the leeway really to just be as creative as they want.

KITTY: This wreath will go on the door and some of the same ingredients on the house match the things that have already sort of started with the kitchen wreath.

This wreath is gonna be on a fresh green.

It goes on a white wall in between two brown window frames.

So I think with the brown, we'll coordinate with the window.

The gum balls I found on the parkway, neighbor's yard.

Anywhere we'd see 'em, we pick 'em up.

I'm always picking up stuff.

I have a bag in my car, so if I see something somewhere, I, I pick it up.

I've always been a very creative person, and I just love being able to create something.

I think everything looks beautiful in here when we see it.

And then when we see it really up at the place where it's going to go, the house or the window, or the gate or wherever it, it just changes the whole look and it more beautiful to me.

GOLDIE: So I'm working on an arch piece.

Uh, this is just a dried grapevine arch.

It's gonna go on this wall piece over here.

It's so beautiful when all the decorations have a little bit of dusting of snow.

It really does put you in the holiday spirit.