In the 000-default.conf:
<Directory /path/to/parent/directory>
Options +Includes
AddType text/html .html
# Either of the next two lines should work by itself, un-comment as necessary
AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .html
#AddHandler server-parsed .html
</Directory>
Once the above is set, restart apache2 and you can use directives of the sort:
<!--#include virtual="path/from/the/containing/included_file.anyext" -->

