Shortest month of the year by far

The first weekend in December we were invited to go to lunch in Alexandria at the home of one of Jim's best friends from USNA, and we realized the annual Scottish Christmas Walk Parade was happening so we thought we would make a quick detour before heading over. We attempted to enjoy this event five years ago when we were living in Arlington, but the torrential rains made that pretty much impossible. I for one couldn't remember why Alexandria had a Scottish Parade complete with lots of scottie dogs, bagpipes, drums and several clans of people sporting all different combinations of tartan. Well, turns out Alexandria was settled by Scottish merchants in 1749 and named after Scotsman John Alexander whose land became what is present day Alexandria. So I guess it makes sense. The parade route was PACKED! We caught a few of the clans marching and headed over to a giant Christmas Tree, snapped a picture and decided we had seen enough. Let the Christmas season officially begin!

    

If if is Christmas then you can be sure the school is putting on a Christmas concert. Sadly for me, the night of the concert was the same night we had tickets to a happy hour at the Capitol with friends. So I joined the other parents at school to watch Lucy along with the other members of her guitar class strumming on stage for about 5 minutes. She has really taken to playing the guitar, and we hope she continues with it.

    

   

Finally it was time to pick Lilly up for Christmas break! She flew into BWI after taking a red eye from LA and a short layover in NY. We had hoped to be able to surprise her at baggage claim, but we had a delay in our departure and then Jim didn't realize we had to drive to Baltimore instead of DCA so we were already going to be a few minutes late. No worries though - we found her!! Sooo happy to have her home for the next month!!

     

After being spoiled with the last few years of skiing in Japan, the kids are looking forward to the El Nino winter influence that all the news sites are predicting for this area. Having a dusting of snow in December is fueling those hopes! 

    

We waited to decorate the tree for Lilly, but once she was here it was hard to get everyone together to actually get the job done! But we did manage to try and make the house festive. I refused to cut my good garland to hang over the windows so we compromised with this thin stuff. No one was happy with how it turned out. Our Tanuki got into the festive spirit though! 

    

It took Lilly a few days to adjust to the time zone and she came home with a lingering cough so we gave her a pass on laying the wreaths at Arlington Cemetery. The weather was almost perfect! A huge difference from the last time we did it 5 years ago in a deluge of rain!

 

    

  

We had hoped Lilly would be able to rally and join us for the tour of the US Library of Congress that I had scheduled following the laying of the wreaths. But, sadly, that didn't happen. We enjoyed it nonetheless! If you haven't ever seen the Library of Congress, I highly recommend seeing it all decked out for Christmas!

 

        

    

Also on our bucket list was to see some DC lit up at night. We had done Georgetown's GLOW event the last time, so this time we concentrated on the White House/Capital area. The girls found a Christmas Market downtown and we spent sometime there before cruising over to the National Tree as well as the one at the Capitol. Beautiful!

   

    

    

Up next, Lucy scored an interview with Congressman Good for a USNA nomination, so we drove down to Liberty University in Lynchburg for that. Wow! Lynchburg is a lovely spot. We arrived in time for some lunch and then headed over to the Liberty Library. She walked out of the interview feeling really confident. Hopefully the panel feels she is deserving of a nomination.   

Back to Falls Church we go, and onto our annual tradition of making the Christmas cookies! Lilly and I baked the cookies while Lucy and Ben were at school and once they got home we started the very involved task of decorating. The kids certainly have come a long way. We even cranked out a Daruma cookie this year - while not technically a Christmas-related cookie, Daruma's are tied up with the New Year celebrations in Japan so we thought it appropriate.

            

Another bucket list item was to score tickets to go to the top of the Washington Monument. I wasn't aware the tours were back on after a renovation while we were here in 2018, but a chance fb post set me straight! Usually you need to sign up for these 30 days out, but they do have a small number of tickets that are available daily. I was able to get 5 around lunch time in hopes that Jim would be able to join us on his lunch break. He was not, sigh. 

Essentially you go up in timed groups to the 500th floor in an elevator and inside the room there are windows facing the different directions. After you get your fill of the view you walk down one flight of stairs to another room that has some basic facts and history of the building of the monument and then get back in the elevator to descend to the ground. On your ride up and down there is a TV monitor that gives additional information. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes if you read EVERY single sign. Not a huge time investment, but super interesting nonetheless. 

    

        

This year for Christmas the entire Wellons clan is celebrating at Mary Catherine's house. We have tickets to the Christmas Eve service at the National Cathedral which just so happens to be a few blocks from her house and is also on my personal DC bucket list! It was a beautiful service and I think everyone was in awe of the architecture and music! Afterwards we all walked back to MC's house to have a properly festive dinner and then retired to our house to wait for Santa's arrival.

    

    

Christmas morning, we opened presents at our house before heading over to MC's to link up with the rest of the family for breakfast. Afterwards the whole clan descended on our house for a rousing game of flag football and pickleball while MC's family got their house ready for their second round of hosting us for Christmas dinner.

    

After dinner the family played some games before we started a new family tradition of participating in a white elephant gift exchange. Now that the majority of the grandchildren are in High School/College/Working the family thought it was time for them to be more involved with the gift-giving responsibilities instead of doing the name drawing that had been our go-to for years. There were a few items that were highly coveted but I think everyone went home with some new treasures.

    

    

We spent so much time with family that we really didn't get any "just our family" pictures so before we went to bed I made everyone put their Christmas PJ's back on and we jumped in front of the tree and snapped a few!

      

The next morning, Lilly and I piled into the car with the pets and headed to Swansboro to visit with family before half of them headed out of town! She got to see Will and Mela, Gigi, Ward, Kat and Baby Beckett!! Jim was due to follow with Lucy and Ben a few days later. But first he had a to attend the Military Bowl at Annapolis where he served as senior Marine for a swearing-in ceremony for some    new recruits. Of course Ben was all in to attend with him as well as Jim's best friend from high school Scott Wingfield and sons! Two of Scott's boys attend Virginia Tech. The weather was horrid, but they scored a box seat and therefore probably had the best seats in the house! At least they weren't sitting in the rain for the whole game! 

    

Meanwhile in Swansboro, Lilly and I were soaking up all the family love and trying to help Nanny un-decorate for Christmas. Always a fun time! Soon enough the rest of the crowd joined us and Nanny treated us to pedicures! Perfect Christmas present!

    

I was able to talk my bestie Stephanie into coming over for dinner one night while we were all there. We sat on the floor in the kitchen until super late - mom later said she felt like we had been transported back to high school. It was just like old times! 

    

One of the big things the girls wanted to do before they left to drive home was to head over to Onslow Beach and look for some  sharks teeth. Girls, you are speaking my language! I am always up that! Jim and Ben were in Jacksonville and said they would meet us there for a bit. Even in the dead of winter there are people walking up and down the shoreline looking for shells and teeth. We found a few good ones and the view was incredible!

 

  

The next morning Jim, the kids and the dog were going to head back to VA while Yoshi and I were planning on staying a few more days to look after Mom and Dad while my sister was in NY on a well deserved mini vacay. Before they took off however, Nanny needed some help getting up the steps to her office. She had not been to the marina since October 25th! She said she wanted to get the December bills out come hell or high water! The woman is unstoppable.

    

    

They got back to Falls Church in plenty of time to partake in the local New Years festivities up on Broad Street. Lots of family-friendly bands and food culminating with the dropping of a Star. 

   

I, on the other hand, ventured up to Front Street in Swansboro for the 2nd annual Mullet Drop. Last year the mulleteers miscalculated the heaviness of the fish and when they dropped it off the second story porch, the fishing line broke and the fish fell - SPLAT! This year, they apparently took the time to practice a bit more and the countdown was pretty near perfect! HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!