The Holidays in Washington

The holidays are here at last! While this year's Christmas season is dominated about completion of the kitchen renovation (the Christmas gift that will keep on giving for years to come), we did manage to take a beautiful day off from the remodal work to enjoy some of the many great holiday activities Washington has to offer.

We made our way dowtown to the Botanical Gardens for the annual train display. This activity has clearly grown in popularity as we had to wait for 30 minutes just to get in. The wait was worth it as once again they had a spectacular train display (complete with Thomas the Train) along with beautiful flowers and replicas of the various monuments around DC. After lunch at the Native American history museum, we headed over to the White House to check out the Christmas tree display.



This year was a disappointment to say the least. The tree was more of a Charley Brown tree (lights were lying in a pool around the bottom because the tree was so much shorter than in prior years). There was no music playing. There was no yule log burning. Santa's workshop was open, so we thought we would take the opportunity to let Anna visit Santa Clause. We were greeted by an elf and a secret service agent dressed in black carrying a rifle along with a bomb sniffing dog (apparently Santa requires a security detail). Unfortunately we have no photos of this event as the web address to access the photo was blocked by security. As for the national tree, well......let's just say it appears that the only place Congress made budget cuts was on holiday decorations.

Anna had another opportunity to visit Santa Claus when he made a special appearance in the neighborhood last weekend at "breakfast with Santa." Santa arrived via fire trucking bringing some early Christmas presents for the neighborhood kids, including a new skirt for Anna. She was very excited!



Anna is learning to write and made out her list for Santa all by herself. Here is what she asked for:

A patched red skert with balk
A pupkin shirt with sparkles
A new map
A new eraser
A new Dora move
A race car trak

Anna spoke in greater detail about the race car trak with her Uncle Rod. Hopefully he and Uncle Tim can take that one off Santa's list.


We are looking forward to Grandma and Grandpa joining us for the holidays this year. They are scheduled to arrive in time for Anna's school Christmas pagent. Grandma has pledged to help make some Christmas cookies (a BIG help since we just got our oven back last night after a 2 month hiatus). We have PLENTY of projects to occupy Grandpa's time.




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