The lead up to Christmas

The lighting of the tree

Business trip in DC - one of my favorite busy days each winter, seeing a friend for dinner, 

then having two evenings in my hotel room alone

Decorating

First snow!!

The annual making of the marshmallows

Santa coming to the 'hood

Smith and my brother did a fun 5k run - the Ugly Sweater 5k. My niece and I took a couple hours and made amazingly ugly sweatshirts, matching of course. 

These two bollards were right in the middle of the start of the race, so my niece and I decided to risk our lives for the cause...we stood on it in a sea of ugly sweater hats. The race was really fun (to watch). Brett ended up staying in the sweater for some time - we went to another town for lunch, and kept wondering why people were staring...