Holiday Happenings for 2016

Christmas at the Capitol
Every year in the Fagella household the family takes a Sunday morning to visit the holiday sights in downtown DC.  The stops usually include the train display at the U.S. Botanical Garden, the Capitol Christmas tree, and the White House Christmas tree.  This year Pauletta, Wil and the boys decided to join in the festivities on December 11.  Apparently everyone else in the Greater Washington area caught on to this tradition as the crowds descended.

The first stop was the botanical gardens....along with hundreds of other people.  The group quickly discovered a line wrapped half way around the building to see the train display....at least a 45 minute wait.  Given that a 2-year old and a 7-year old were involved, we decided to forgo the trains and check out the rest of the gardens, which were also busy.  Theresa has the luxury of working across the streets from the gardens and noted that the train display was nice, but not necessarily worth the crowds.  After a quick look at the gardens, we headed over to the Capitol tree.  This worked out well as the boys could run around the grounds while Anna did cartwheels.  Everyone also got to take in the building of the inauguration platform, which was  quite a construction project.

The next stop was the White House Christmas tree.  This proved to be a problem as traffic was terrible and there was no parking.  By this point, Atticus was asleep and everyone else was hungry.  We decided to forgo the tree and crowds for lunch instead.  Perhaps we can see the tree over the holiday break.

Another holiday tradition is the annually Christmas cookie baking.  This year Anna and her friend Ruby assisted with the cookie decorating.  There was much sugar involved and the dog was on standby to clean-up any decorations that hit the floor.  Joe provided his tasting expertise and determined that the cookies were edible.  The next stop will be cookie delivery around the office and around the neighborhood.

In between all of this, Christmas packages are arriving - thanks to the holiday magic of Amazon Prime.  Unfortunately Joe's surprise package arrived today - NOT in a regular Amazon shipping box but in the product box.  Theresa put a bow on it and stuck it under the tree.  So much for that surprise.  Five more days until Christmas!

Anna & Ruby "decorating" cookies

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