Washington at Christmastime 2011

This is for those of you who will be in the DC area this and the next few weekends, which are bursting at the seams with holiday events: my hand-picked list of the most charming festivities. (After the photo.)

First, I have to share Joanna's work with you. Doesn't this image capture the sweet, intimate and wonderfully domestic spirit of the holidays?

All Month

(DC) A Christmas Carol, Fords Theatre

12/3

(DC) St. Albans Christmas House Tour, 10a-4p, free

Tour decorated homes, hear the St. Albans and National Cathedral School choirs and shop the holiday bazaar. Lunch ($15) 11a-2:30p.

(DC) Renwick Holiday Festival, SI Renwick Gallery, 11a-2p, free

Music, holiday crafts, ornament making, lathe demonstrations and tours.

(DC) Swedish Cmas Bazaar, House of Sweden, 11a-5p, free

Swedish gifts, crafts, textiles for purchase. Sip on glogg and snack on homemade Swedish baked goods and savories in the Cafe. Swedish Christmas carols at 1p. Santa Lucia procession at 5p.

(DC) German Bazaar, German School, 12-5p, free

Classic German Christmas bazaar with German food, Gluehwein, Schmalz, Christmas cookies and cakes, imported woodcrafts from Erzgebirge area, handcrafted decorations and ornaments, handmade advent wreaths and candle arrangements.

(DC) Holidays Through History, Tudor Place, Anderson, Dumbarton, Wilson Houses, 4-8p

Holiday open house! Guests are invited to stroll the historic rooms of any or all of the mansions, delighting in period decorations and music that reflect holiday traditions from the Federal period through the Roaring Twenties, and also sample seasonal treats and crafts projects.

(Alexandria) Boat Parade of Lights, docks at marina in Old Town, 6-7p, free
Festively decorated pleasure boats light up the sky along the Potomac River including 50 powerboats, sailboats and the District's fireboat, the John Glenn spouting water 70 feet into the air. Brightly lit boats are creatively decorated as they compete in categories such as "Best in Show" and "Best Thinking Outside the Christmas Box.

12/4, 10, 11, 17, 18

(Alexandria) Mount Vernon by Candlelight, 5-8:30p

"Mrs. Washington" hosts an enchanting evening of candlelit tours, fireside Christmas caroling, and samples of hot cider and ginger cookies. The Mount Vernon by Candlelight tour includes the first and second floors, featuring characters from the Washingtons' world guiding visitors through the home and adding ambiance and authenticity to a traditional Christmas evening at Mount Vernon.

12/9 & 12/11
(Alexandria) Carols by Candlelight Holiday Tea, Green Springs Garden Park, 4:30p
Sip tea by candlelight and listen to pieces that reflect the spirit of the season from Colonial times on. Full English tea.

12/10

(DC) Irish Christmas in America, National Geographic building, 3p & 7p

A popular mix of traditional music, dance and storytelling.

(Alexandria) Gunston Hall Plantation Cmas, GH Plantation, 4:30-9:30
Ride in a horse-drawn carriage, sip cider by a bonfire, enjoy holiday music, tour the mansion by candlelight and watch costumed characters. A plantation yuletide dinner (by reservation) includes traditional fare and admission to Plantation Christmas.

12/17, 18, 20 & 22
(DC) Washington Chorus Sing-Along & Candlelit Processional, Kennedy Center, 4p & 7p
This holiday event features Christmas classics, sing-alongs, and the candlelight processional.

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photo by Joanna | sources include Washington Post and About DC

{ Guest Post } Chocolate, Cupcakes & Wine... Oh My!

What do you like to do on chilly, wet Saturdays? A determined and cold rain is soothing DC into a slumber today. This means I'm staying in and casting envious little glances at last weekend's full dance card: hiking in the autumn woods, a crafty pop-up shop, a dance festival (breakdance, Flamenco and ballet under one roof!), and a chocolatey, Bacchus-approved resuscitation. 

My first stop along this trip down short-term memory lane is Co Co Sala's celebration of DC Wine Week, which I reviewed on ReadySetDC. If you plan to visit DC, well, ever, you will want to pay close attention to this one and share it on Facebook with others who might like this tip for their next trip...

The DC Wine Week concept was concocted, appropriately, on a cocktail napkin. Founders Lisa Byrne and Vanessa French designed the week-long celebration around a brilliantly simple pairing: good wine and great conversation. In the spirit of inclusiveness and support of local business, Lisa and Vanessa welcomed a variety of merchants and events – tastings, custom DCWW menus, classes and a waterfront fitness training session – from Alexandria to Chevy Chase.

Great wine and conversation moved to Co Co Sala Chocolate Lounge & Boutique, where a tasting of sweets and bubbly in the bar’s warm candle-lit atmosphere made work-weary wine enthusiasts sigh “TGIF”. Attentive bartenders treated visitors to Prosecco, an ombre selection of chocolate (from white to 72% cacao), and a very special cupcake complete with instructions. The chocolate cupcake featured three delicious textures – moist cake, light-as-a-cloud mousse frosting and crunchy cocoa nibs – as well as a wine chaser. Equal parts chic and fun means this tasting is sure to sell out again next year. (Envision “Occupy Co Co Sala” signs populating F St should this tasting disappear from next year’s DCWW offering.)

A mini retreat, this event alone is enough to make you sign up now for DC Wine Week 2012 and toast to weekends at Co Co Sala throughout the year.

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images natalie @ calliope |  wine bottles, Vinoteca wine bar, wine tasting, chocolate & wine event photos by Frances Kupersmith & DC Wine Week logo

{ Guest Post } RSDC Design Studio

Check out my interview with the owner of new DC design studio Sukio, Desiré Greene, also organizer of Apartment Therapy Design Evenings. We chat about her inspiration, hope for the emerging DC design scene, ATDE wish list and vision for Sukio. I've had interview phobia since concocting a pretty pathetic mock interview for a sociology class at William & Mary. One phobia down, an embarrassing number of additional phobias to go...

Click here to read the interview at ReadySetDC, an online magazine seeking to capture the cultural renaissance in DC, spotlight the creatives behind the scene and inspire.

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photo by natalie @ calliope

G40 Urban Art Show: Go Play

Art Whino's G40 Summit is a pop-up urban art show fresh in its multi-experiential innovation. At G40, virtually all surfaces are used as part of any given installation - floors, ceilings, walls, stairwells. Most senses are engaged, too. Ambient music streams through some rooms, while other rooms remain intentionally quiet. One installation provides the viewer with actual candy to enjoy, and another has a dedicated room that makes you feel as if you have stepped into the artist's scrapbook and features journals to peruse. At last year's Summit, there was a small room dedicated to the audience's doodles, a haven for the inner child who yearned to draw on walls. More importantly, G40 gives average people of diverse backgrounds and aesthetic preferences access to the explosive creativity of emerging art, once considered "underground art". What I love most about new art forms is the truly border-free license it seems to grant creatives, in not only a spatial but also a conceptual sense. It doesn't limit the artist's or the audience's experience to a canvas, dimension, aesthetic or statement. It seems to say, "go play!". Don't you miss that chance to play, to follow your imagination without reservation?

1 The words "truth, justice, no crimes" surrounded the painting and window boxes of broken pieces of china lined the bottom edge. 3 If I could buy one work, it would have been these 3 skateboards with butterfly appliqués. 4 Stairwell between exhibition floors. 

1 Refreshingly feminine, this artist's work - in this case, crafted with tulle, found book pages, handmade paper - "is intimate and personal, with a bent towards exploring things that have remained unspoken, secret or denied." 2 Is she evil or distraught? Pilgrim or elfin? Either way, her gaze is mesmerizing.

1 cloth blossoms on mesh with coated wire. 2 twine installation that evokes car wash, hair, hay. 3 all in the eyes. 4 almost phosphorescent.

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photos: sculpture by stan @ calliope, rest by natalie @ calliope

China artwork by Gabriel Pons, topographical artwork by Charles Clary, skateboards and graffiti mural unknown, tulle dressform artwork by Kelly O'Brien, elfin pilgrim by Rich Salcido, mesh wire and pink artwork by Christina Martinelli, hanging twine artwork by Natalie Andrews, sculpture and hummingbird mural unknown

Friday Favs: The Good, the Bad, the (not so) Ugly

T h e  G o o d ...

The DCist Exposed Photography Show exhibits DCist editors' picks from photos tagged as "DCist" on Flickr.  My husband and I went to the opening at Longview Gallery, where I met senior editor and Exposed bartender, Martin Andres Austermuhle. I discovered that he too spent his early years in Bogotá, Colombia. Small world! (Ok, he's Swiss and I'm not, but I was British in a past life and that's close. Right?) True, I'm bound to meet home-grown Colombians in the city of embassies. Pish tosh, they're transient expats, not "childhood-Colombian". There's a difference and the expats would say it's a little larger than an ant-hill. But, I digress...

Why I waited that long to visit Longview Gallery, I don't know. I felt right at home in this space, somehow. The intimacy of its fairly small interior balances its loft-y vibe. It reminded me of Georgetown's Halcyon House, the setting for an event I did in my last year as a wedding designer. I would share a few shots with you, but Leikness-Dougherty kept forgetting to send shots of my work. (Evidently, I don't forget. Admittedly, a little scary.)

More digression: DCist's logo is adorable. I felt like skipping across the room when they stamped the logo onto our hands, but it was too crowded for that. I didn't want to wash it off right away, forgot to scrub it off and went to bed. The result? A DCist temporary tattoo on my face! It showered right off, though. I wonder how my (euh) spontaneous French language instructor would have reacted had I gone to class DCist-branded...

Back to the original point. Longview is truly the perfect setting for my favorite shots by 2011 winners:

Infusion Dance Co - spiggycat



Babel - specimenlife



[love in loss] - holding steady

And these 2. (Sorry, sources disabled image sharing.)

4th of July - A Moment to Capture
DC Caribbean Festival

T h e  B a d ...

I was taken hostage by an insurmountable craving for cake. I intended to get a slice of real vanilla cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberries at Whole Foods, but they were out of my flavor. Gasp! They had chocolate-frosted chocolate cake and carrot cake. I am all for chocolate as an accompaniment - Nutella, chocolat chaud, peanut butter cups - not as a narcissistic dessert ingredient. I do have the ability to like carrot cake, but it scares me because it's too unreliable. (You can end up with a gag-inducing carrot cake just as easily as you can end up with a really great one.) That left only their angel food cake with fresh berries. Normally, I don't buy ready-made desserts, much less an entire cake to take home. If I don't buy it, I don't eat it. I also don't like the wastefulness, the thoughtlessness of impulse buys. But it isn't everyday that you're kidnapped by cake. I argued that cake wasn't an impulse buy because it was on my list. Off I went with my little extravagance.

Life Lesson #_: Don't buy a whole cake when you're hungry. I know this rule. I usually follow it pretty well. (I'm really good at following rules... so long as they're not silly rules made up by other people.) Last two days? Nope, not so much. I ate most of it. By myself. (No photo of the blushing cake, because, well, it's gone.) On the bright side, it was lunch and breakfast, it could've been real butter-rich cake, and I had power cardio and reformer class afterwards. Was it good? Not bad, but a little drunk on sugar. (In America, we seem to be seduced by sweet excess, often piling high fructose corn syrup on top of sugar. The French, however have mastered the art of dessert. They know it isn't necessary to bulldoze the palate with sugar.) After all that, my favorite part was the berries and I should've just bought a tub of them.

But try paying Cake's ransom with berries.

T h e  U g l y ...

Hmm. Crickets. I go treasure-hunting for the lovely, the fun, the original and the inspiring so it isn't easy to resurrect the ugly. The bouncer in my head promptly escorts the ugly away. There is enough "ugliness" out there - slightly ugly and very ugly, among the familiar and the unknown, close to home and far away. I vote for not being around it but going for the treasure instead.

This isn't ugly in the least, but it's scary in an oh so fun way. (Fluorescently colored - is it meant to be consumed? It's too cute to eat!) It's the best DIY idea I've ever seen for St. Patrick's Day. For more info on making your own leprechaun trap, visit the fabulous Not Martha.

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It's Easter, Peeps!

I love Peeps. They're gross but oh so kitschy-cute. They spark this wonderful childish onslaught of creativity to see what you can make out of Peeps - monsters, architectural marvels, Jenga pieces, fences, play actors, the occasional nasty snack, and... a replica of a scene from an Oscar-winning animated film.

Here are my favorite Peep creations from Washington Post's 4th Annual Peeps Diorama Contest:

 

1. based on Pixar's UP; 2. based on "Goodnight Moon"

 

1. based on "Alice in Wonderland"; 2. based on "Madeline"

 

1. Pres. Obama with Bo (Simon likes to walk me this way sometimes); 2. First Family's dedication to health (super cool veggies)

 

1. DC Nationals' Presidents Race; 2. DC Blizzard '10 (the Peep trapped in car!)

 

1. Synchronized Peeping; 2. Creating MasterPeeps (insane level of detail - Peeps skeleton!)

 

1. Hitchcock's The Peeps; 2. riff on Chick-fil-A ad (look at the mini signs!)

DC: Arts & Crafts Weekend

If you are in town this weekend, you won't know what to do with yourself because there are just too many fun events to attend. It's a great complaint to have so get out there! A very brief sampling:

DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!

(DC) Modeled after the successful “Fall for Dance” festival in New York City, VelocityDC features world-class dance companies and artists presented in a fast-paced gala format, with dramatically reduced ticket prices. Saturday 7:30p and 10:00p.

INDIE CRAFTS FAIR

(DC) Handmade alternative arts and crafts from indie artists - pottery, furniture, etc. Crafty Bastards - Adams Morgan happens Saturday 10:00a-5:00p.

ART ON THE AVENUE

(Alexandria) Music, food, crafts, contests...a festival with neighborhood charm! Del Ray Art on the Avenue runs Saturday 10:00a-6:00p.