Got a list for Santa? There’s a Christmas-red mailbox in Alexandria that sends letters to the North Pole, and Santa is responding.
It’s the second straight year that Bill and Stephanie Pastewait have used their influence with Jolly Old Saint Nick by planting the mailbox in front of their home at 3103 Russell Road in Warwick Village. Bill said that about 50 kids posted letters last year.
“We really enjoy forwarding these letters to Santa,” Bill said. “The more the better.”
So far, about 15 kids have sent in letters, and Bill says that good girls and boys should put their letters in the mailbox with their name and return address by Monday, Dec. 18 — just enough time for Santa to respond before embarking on yet another round-the-world trip on Christmas Eve.
The Office of Historic Alexandria has debuted its annual holiday ornament: a solid brass decoration depicting Potomac Yard’s rail yard history.
The 3 x 2.75 inch ornament features a steam-powered locomotive in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. The ornament is $25.
The Potomac Yard Metro station opened earlier this year, though if the ornament were themed around the Metro station instead of the train yard, it would have been delayed multiple times due to internal issues.
The ornament comes with a collector’s box and a card detailing the history of Potomac Yard.
According to the city’s website:
Potomac Yard opened in 1906 on land that had been part of the C&O Canal only decades earlier. It was the largest rail yard on the east coast for years, shared between five railroad companies. Flanked by Richmond Highway and the Town of Potomac on one side and the Potomac River on the other, it connected the exchange of produce from the south and manufactured goods from the north. It closed in 1987, even though trains continued to travel through the former yard. The Potomac Yard Metro Station, which opened in 2023, is the most recent rail development on the site.
(Updated 3:20 p.m.) Alexandria has nabbed a top spot on another holiday-focused tour list, this time on holiday gift website Mixbook.
The website’s list “America’s Favorite ‘Christmassy’ Towns 2023” ranked Alexandria at number five — though unlike AARP, Mixbook fails to note that Alexandria is a city, not a town.
“Alexandria, Virginia, voted as America’s fifth most Christmassy town, embodies the spirit of the holiday season with its unique blend of history and festive charm,” Mixbook wrote. “The town’s picturesque streets, lined with historic brick buildings, are transformed into a winter wonderland adorned with twinkling lights and holiday decorations.”
Like the AARP list, the Mixbook list praises the city’s candlelight tours and the Scottish Christmas Walk Parade hosted this past weekend.
According to the website:
Alexandria’s rich colonial history adds to its allure, offering a nostalgic backdrop to modern holiday celebrations. The town hosts a variety of seasonal events, such as traditional candlelight tours, and the iconic Scottish Christmas Walk Parade, showcasing its vibrant community spirit. The bustling holiday markets, local artisan shops, and cozy cafes create an inviting atmosphere, drawing visitors from near and far. Alexandria’s blend of historic ambience, community festivities, and warm, welcoming spirit make it a quintessential destination for experiencing the magic of Christmas.
While the highlight on the list of towns is nice, the distinction between cities, towns and counties is substantial in Virginia.
In Virginia, cities are independent of counties. City residents pay city taxes, elect city officials, and run their own school systems, etc. Towns, like Vienna and Herndon, are not separate from their counties — in those cases, Fairfax County.
Cities can also annex territories from counties, as Alexandria did when it took the West End from Fairfax County and as it should do with Shirlington.
Friends of Guest House needs pajamas and cozy socks for their female residents who are transitioning back to the community from prison.
Realtor Maureen Clyne started the annual effort four years ago and has collected hundreds of pajama sets. This year’s goal is 100 pairs of pajamas.
“Because what’s better than a new pair of pajamas?” Clyne told ALXnow.
Donations of cozy socks and L-3XL pajamas can be dropped off at 9 East Cliff Street in Alexandria. Pickups can also be arranged by calling or texting 703-967-8884.
“What an incredible gift that will impact many, many women and make them not only feel warm, but very welcome,” former Friends of Guest House Executive Director Kari Galloway said. “We are so very grateful.”
Friends of Guest House serves 60 women every year in its residential program, and helped more than 4,000 women transition from jail since 1974.
Via Sapan Patel/Unsplash
Alexandrians have had a lot of thoughts on local architecture recently, and now they’ll get a chance to craft their own building in Old Town — albeit one made out of gingerbread.
Gadsby’s Tavern Museum (138 N. Royal Street) is once again hosting its gingerbread decorating event early next month, with gingerbread houses themed around various historic buildings in Old Town.
According to the city’s website:
Learn about local architecture as you decorate a flat “façade” (front) based on historic buildings around Gadsby’s Tavern Museum. Ticket includes one flat gingerbread façade, all the supplies needed to decorate, and admission to the museum. Inspiring samples highlight architectural details you can recreate in candy and search for in the neighborhoods on your way home. Event ideal for families or adult groups; up to four people welcome per ticket. Hot cider available for purchase during event. $25 per decorating set for up to four people.
The event is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 17, from 1-6 p.m., but be prepared to defend your unauthorized exterior gumdrop additions or anachronistic frosting choices at the Board of Architectural Review later.
After a flurry of activity, the Del Ray Christmas tree is finally at home at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square.
The 32-foot-tall Fraser fir was lifted by a crane and installed on Tuesday afternoon. It’s the 13th straight year that Bill Blackburn of the Homegrown Restaurant Group selected and cut down the tree at the Naughty Pines Nursery in Maryland.
Blackburn, who owns the Christmas-themed Joy on the Avenue pop-up bar, picked the tree the day after Thanksgiving with his family. The tree is not as tall as the 40-foot-tall Christmas tree in front of City Hall in Old Town, and won’t have 40,000 lights, but Blackburn said that the neighborhood-feel of a real tree is better.
“It’s not perfectly shaped,” Blackburn said. “But it’s a real tree for kids and the community to enjoy.”
The Del Ray Christmas tree and menorah lightings are this Sunday at 6 p.m. The free event is held at Pat Miller Square (Mount Vernon and E. Oxford Avenues) and includes singing, hot chocolate, and visits from Santa and city leaders.
BMC Builder’s Choice provided the flatbed truck to and driver to haul the 30-foot-tall tree to Del Ray, and Mike Dameron of Windmill Hill donated his cherry picker crane to put it in place.
“I think the Del Ray Christmas tree is a good snapshot of the community and small businesses coming together,” Dameron said. “We’re getting no city funds to procure this and it’s a real tree.”
Pat Miller bought a new star this year for the treetop, and the tree will be decorated on Wednesday.
“We’ve always put red ribbon on top of the tree and everyone says we needed a star,” Miller said. “So Maureen Schweers and I went to a local store and right there staring in front of us was our star, so we got it. Now we have a star.”
Joy on the Avenue is officially open to the public in Del Ray.
The Christmas-themed pop-up bar at 2312 Mount Vernon Avenue softly opened on Tuesday night, just in time for the long holiday weekend.
Owner Bill Blackburn said that the restaurant bar is the most festively decorated of its kind in Alexandria.
“It’s the same formula with the pop-up that we’ve followed the last two holiday seasons,” Blackburn said. “We have a very creative cocktail menu with some familiar favorites, some new creations this year and some nibbles to spread some holiday cheer.”
The menu (in the photo gallery above) includes concoctions like “We Forgot Kevin!” with Tito’s vodka, St. Germaine, cranberry juice, lemon, bitters, jalapeno honey, syrup and ginger beer.
It took nearly two weeks to get the annual pop-up ready, since Blackburn and staff had to pack away all of the Halloween decorations from the bar’s previous iteration as Nightmare on the Avenue.
Blackburn said that Joy on the Avenue will stay up until the first week in January, when it will wrap with the annual Festivus party.
Before everyone jumps on AARP, the group acknowledged in a listing of best “small towns” in America to enjoy the holidays that Alexandria is a city.
With that out of the way: AARP said Alexandria is one of the top five “small towns that will bring your Hallmark Christmas movie dreams to life.”
Alongside skiing destinations in Utah and a former gold rush town in Georgia, AARP said Alexandria’s “cozy small town vibes, especially during winter months,” give the city of 155,000 a rustic, European village feeling.
“Alexandria is technically a midsize city, with a year-round population of slightly more than 155,000, but this Washington suburb still gives cozy small-town vibes, especially during the winter months,” AARP wrote. Take a stroll down King Street’s brick-laden sidewalks through Alexandria’s historic district, and you may feel like you’re in an old European village.”
The listing cited the Scottish Christmas Walk Parade as a particular highlight of the holiday season.
“Alexandria’s Scottish Christmas Walk Parade on Dec. 2 continues its old European roots by paying homage to the Scottish merchants who founded the town in 1749,” AARP wrote. “Scottish clans dressed in traditional tartans (the plaid, woolen cloths) march through Old Town Alexandria. Attendees are welcome to bring chairs to watch anywhere along the mile-long route. The festivities continue later that day with a holiday boat parade. Onlookers can watch decorated boats float by on the Potomac River.”
Other “towns” highlighted on the list are:
- Kennebunkport, Maine
- Dahlonega, Georgia
- Lebanon, Ohio
- Park City, Utah
An annual holiday program kicking off next month at the Fort Ward Museum (4301 W. Braddock Road) will combine the fun and holiday spirit of the Christmas season with education about a conflict that left an estimated 1.5 million casualties.
Civil War Christmas in Camp is a popular annual program the Fort Ward Museum, featuring reenactors in a winter camp setting and period decorations. This year, the program is scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 9, from noon to 4 p.m.
The suggested donation for visitors is $2 per person or $5 for families.
According to a release from the city:
The program features a Civil War-era Union Santa Claus, based on an 1863 cover of Harper’s Weekly by artist Thomas Nast, who will interact with the public, welcome children to the reconstructed Officers’ Hut, and visit soldiers in camp. Reenactors will interpret army life in winter camps that are decorated for the season, and celebrate by opening Christmas boxes from home, singing carols of the period around the campfire, and preparing holiday meals. The Museum will be decorated with festive greenery and a Victorian parlor tree. Children can make a holiday card or ornament. A variety of Civil War books and “stocking stuffers” are available in the Museum shop.
Veterans Day is this upcoming Saturday, but the holiday is also observed on Friday, so the mix of what’s open and closed around Alexandria is a little more muddled than it usually is on a holiday.
For Alexandria City Public Schools, for example, it’s a school day as usual.
Reminder: We have school on Friday. We are not closed for Veterans Day. pic.twitter.com/Eq9Vu4T4v8
— JamesKPolkElementary (@JKPolkACPS) November 8, 2023
However, the courts, libraries, DMV and city government will all be closed tomorrow (Friday).
Parking enforcement will also be suspended for some locations tomorrow. According to a release from the city of Alexandria:
Friday, November 10: The Alexandria Police Department will suspend enforcement of parking restrictions at metered spaces and residential permit parking districts. This suspension of enforcement applies only to the restrictions at legal parking spaces and does not permit parking in any normally prohibited location. Temporary no-parking signs will be enforced.
We will be closed in observance of Veterans Day. We will reopen on Saturday, November 11. pic.twitter.com/PmFyz8npWW
— Alexandria Library (@alexlibraryva) November 9, 2023
Photo via Friends of Rocky Versace/Facebook