Long December

I made the executive decision at the beginning of the month that I wanted to do as much Christmas-y stuff as possible this month.  Because you know, that's fun and stuff.  (Note: L is not explicitly aware of this decision, though he has inadvertently taken part in some qualifying activities.)  Who doesn't love the spirit of Christmas? 

The first weekend's Christmas activity was hitting up JLW's Christmas bazaar, aka A Capital Collection, aka ACC.  I'll be honest and admit that I had high expectations for this event.  I'd missed it the last two years due the fact that it was on a weekend I was traveling for Thanksgiving last year and the year before, we were in Baltimore for my birthday (seeing Jim Gaffigan.  Who is hilarious.).  Add that to the fact that the JL of Austin has an amazing Christmas market (biggest in the country last time I checked and they go all. out.) and you can see how lofty my expectations were.  I assumed the nation's capital would be on a similar scale to Austin's A Christmas Affair.  I met a college/sorority friend there Saturday afternoon and we started hitting up the booths.  Honestly there wasn't much that knocked my socks off.  My favorite Eastern Market jewelry vendor has spoiled me to buying jewelry elsewhere and there's only so many dip and soup mixes that you actually need.  However.  Toward the end of the afternoon, we stumbled upon a booth that had all kinds of hats and fascinators and of course we went to town trying them all on.  Some of our faves:



And that's just the highlight reel.  There were quite a few more that we tried on but didn't take pics of.  If you're ever out shopping with a friend and you stumble upon a bunch of fascinators, do yourselves a favor and stop and try them on.  You'll laugh a lot.

The following week, I met my JLW committee for drinks and our monthly meeting at the Willard Hotel in DC. 

Ever wonder where the term "lobbyist" comes from?  This hotel!  The Willard is right by the White House and apparently petitioners used to hound politicians and/or the president while they were there enjoying adult beverages.  Yeah, you just learned something.  Probably. 

The Willard is kind of awesome on a general basis - there's a great bar and there's always a big event going on no matter what day of the week it is, so the people watching is great.  Even if you're not seeing important political people, you can check out all the pretty dresses when there's a black tie even happening (which is frequent).  At Christmas, they go all out with the decorations.  This is the big tree in their lobby:

I should've taken more pics of the decorations (seriously, they were everywhere) but I didn't want to go all amateur hour and be the annoying girl taking pics of everything.  Tres' touristy.  Instead I just quickly snapped a shot of their gingerbread replica of the hotel itself:

They are not joking around with the details.  When I arrived for my meeting, they had a choir there singing Christmas carols.  Again, would've taken pics, but it seemed all too papparazzi since I didn't know any of the choir members.  Instead I just squeezed by them and headed into the bar.

More yuletide adventures forthcoming.  For now, bedtime.