Posts Tagged ‘Maryland’
Ring in 2012 with a Local New Year’s Eve
Many people insist the best way to spend New Year’s Eve is to go to Times Square in New York City. But why leave Washington, D.C. when there’s plenty to do here!
In the greater Washington, D.C. area, there are many unique ways—different from what you may be used to—to ring in 2012.
One of the most all-encompassing celebrations, with plenty of entertaining events for adults and kids, is First Night Alexandria, which occurs all throughout Old Town Alexandria and includes scavenger hunts, live music and a ball drop at midnight.
The party begins at 1:00 p.m. on December 31st with the third annual Fun Hunt, a search throughout Old Town that all attendees are eligible to participate in. Clues take you around the area and lead to answers on quiz sheets everyone is given. The hunt runs until 4:45 p.m., but only takes around an hour-and-a-half to complete, so scavengers can maintain a leisurely pace.
Anyone that completes the hunt correctly is eligible for the prize drawings, with first prize taking home an overnight stay at the Lorien Hotel & Spa in Old Town, free personal training sessions, gift certificates galore from many of the shops in Old Town and passes for a cruise on the Potomac. Second and third place also receive bounties, with overnight stays at other Alexandria hotels as part of the prize packages.
After the Fun Hunt, the party really gets started. All across the city, restaurants and bars will host live bands. One of the most popular acts performing is Curtis Blues, an interactive one-man blues band. He will be playing half-hour shows every other half-hour at Bittersweet, on King Street, from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. For kids, at Nickells & Scheffler, on Duke Street, 16-year-old sensation Keira Moran will play half-hour shows as well.
At midnight, after all the events are over, participants at First Night Alexandria gather on the lawn of the George Washington Masonic Memorial for a ball drop, which includes over 6,000 inflatable balls, and a dance party that lasts until 12:30 a.m.
Tickets for First Night Alexandria cost $20 per person and allow admission to all events.
If you’re looking for another way to share New Year’s with your family, but can’t expect your children to make it all the way to midnight, then Maryland Science Center, in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is the place to go. From 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the Center hosts its annual Midnight Noon celebration, where, when the clock strikes 12:00 p.m. on December 31, the Science Center’s ball drops and kids celebrate with noisemakers and balloons.
The entire Maryland Science Center is open during the exhibit, which means that alongside celebrating the New Year, kids can visit the great exhibits. Among the most popular are “Dinosaur Mysteries,” which includes full scale models of many dinosaurs and “Newton’s Alley,” where hands-on physics exhibits are geared toward kids.
Admission to Midnight Noon is free with paid admission to the Science Center - $15 for adults and $12 for kids under 13.
For a more adult celebration of New Year’s Eve, Glen Echo Park, in Maryland, has just the event. The New Year’s Eve Swing Dance, held at the park, is a throwback to celebrations from America’s Big Band Era. The event begins at 8:00 p.m. with lessons for beginners, so when the Tom Cunningham Orchestra takes the stage at 9:00 p.m., everyone will be ready to roll and have a swinging New Year’s. Tickets for the dance are $25 per person.
So this New Years, instead of the typical party and midnight ball drop, head out of the house and try something totally different.
- David
Hanukkah Holiday Happenings
This past Wednesday marked the beginning of one of Judaism’s biggest holidays. Hanukkah is an eight day-long event, celebrating the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE. The holiday typically occurs anytime from late November to late December, and this year it comes at the far end of the spectrum, running until December 28th.
Around Washington, D.C., there are numerous ways to enjoy, with events in Maryland, Virginia and the District.
The biggest, literally, is the National Hanukkah Menorah, which sits right outside the White House Grounds. The Menorah symbolizes the miracle that happened in the 2nd century BCE. The story tells that when many Jews were trapped in their temple due to a revolt, they worried that they only had enough candle oil to last one night. The oil, however, managed to last eight full days, enough time for the people inside the temple to prepare new oil.
The lighting ceremony of the main candle of the National Hanukkah Menorah, which stays lit throughout the celebration, took place on the Mall on Wednesday. But each night for the rest of the holiday, a lighting ceremony will take place for each new candle.
While it’s a symbolic way to celebrate, the National Menorah is far from the only way to enjoy this holiday season. There are plenty of activities for adults and children alike.
One of the largest celebrations is a gala aimed at the younger crowd. For 25 straight years, the Society of Young Jewish Professionals, and more recently JDate, have paired up to present the MatzoBall.
Geared toward singles under the age of 50, the MatzoBall is a nationwide event that gives young Jewish people the opportunity to mingle and network. This year, galas are being thrown in New York City, Miami, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. In our own town, the MatzoBall is on Saturday, December 24th. It runs from 8:00 p.m. all the way until 3:00 a.m. and tickets cost $30.
For a more relaxing celebration, on December 25th, revelers can head to Old Town, Alexandria, for the Hanukkah Festival of Old Town, hosted by the Chabad Lubavitch of Alexandria-Arlington. Chabad Lubavitch is Hebrew for Brotherly Love, and their Northern Virginia branch throws a free celebration worthy of that moniker. At the Crowne Plaza Hotel, on North Fairfax Street, the group will light a six-foot tall menorah, hold free raffles, host live bands and cook hot potato latkes.
Across the river, in downtown Bethesda, the Chabad Lubavitch of Bethesda-Chevy Chase will be holding a kid-friendly celebration, Thursday, December 22nd, at Bethesda Row. Chanukah in Candyland is free to attend, and has numerous activities for kids of all ages. The perks of Chanukah in Candyland are a magic show, free souvenir dreidels, cotton candy and popcorn and a sight that is sure to wow just about every child: a menorah, which will be lit at the end of the festivities, made entirely out of jelly beans. That’s right, a jelly bean menorah.
It’s a fun way, among the many other options, to celebrate the enjoyable holiday that is Hanukkah.
-David
Holiday Light Tours Brighten Up Your December
Literally. Lights. In the last month of the calendar year, cities, towns and counties brighten up, giving visitors and residents alike the chance to see their locales like never before.
Throughout the Metro area, places are stringing together awe-inspiring displays of lights, fantastic works of art in their own right. Almost every town has a light tour that’s worth seeing, but some of the most popular in the area are absolutely deserving of a visit.
One of the biggest shows is also the most popular. ZooLights runs from now until January 1st, every day of the week. Hosted by the National Zoo up in Woodley Park, the event starts at 5:00 p.m., when dusk settles in and runs until 9:00 at night. The event is an elaborate showcase for the zoo, with an array of events for everyone. There are the intricate lights, which are shaped into realistic animal figures, but there’s also a synthetic ice rink, where kids can rent ice skates and glide on a surface that, while it feels like ice, is actually a polyurethane mat. Also during ZooLights, several of the animal houses are open, so if you need to warm up, or just want to chat with an orangutan, you can pop in. Admission to Zoolights is $9 for Friends of the National Zoo, and $12 for non-members.
About 30 miles west of the Zoo, in Centreville Virginia, is the Bull Run Festival of Lights, one of the most intense light displays you’ll find around Washington. Running from now until January 8th, the Bull Run Festival of Lights incorporates nearly 40,000 lights into its presentation. Visitors drive a 2.5 mile loop and the cruise is set to music (visitors tune to a station on their way in). While driving through the park, tourists see lit up animated penguins, snowmen, deer and toy soldiers. Admission for the festival is $15 per car on weekdays, with the show running from 5:30- 9:30 p.m. On weekends, the price is upped a bit, costing $20 per car, although the loop stays open a half hour later, until 10 p.m. Also at Bull Run, from the 15th until January 1st, is a carnival featuring rides and games for kids and adults alike.
Across state lines, Maryland features two great festivals this December. First is the Winter Lights’ Festival in Seneca State Park in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The light tour has been open since the beginning of December and runs through the New Year. The ride is a mile longer than the Bull Run and cost less, just $12 on weekdays and $15 on weekends. The hours are a bit shorter, open from 6-9 p.m. on Sunday-Thursday and 6-10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. On the car trip, riders will see nearly 70 animated displays, with the drive separated into different sections like Teddy Bear Land, Penguin Cove, and the North Pole.
The biggest display of the year goes to the Gaylord National Harbor, and their month long festival, ICE!, which runs until January 8. It’s the most expensive of the bunch, with tickets ranging from $25-35, but it’s without a doubt the most put together. Ticket buyers can experience an entire carved ice village, hosted inside a massive refrigerated tent. The display is so intricate, it takes a month of work in advance, and so immense, it uses nearly two million pounds of ice.
This year’s theme for ICE! is the Dreamworks movie Madagascar, and popular characters from the animated film will be on hand to tell the story of how Santa Claus inadvertently crashed on the island of Madgascar and how the animals of the tropical oasis must figure out a way to save Christmas.
It’s perfect fun for the family, as is every event here, wonderful ways to make December sparkle.
-David
Unconventional Christmas Cheer in D.C.
With Thanksgiving finally wrapped up, many of us are shifting our attention to one of the biggest holiday events left this year – Christmas.
The standard style of preparing, going to the mall to shop and see Santa, is what just about everyone in this city will do in the weeks leading up to December 25th. But we live in a multicultural city, so there’s no reason not to break the typical holiday routine and do something completely different. And this upcoming weekend provides some of the best opportunities to shake up the holiday malaise.
On Saturday, the Swedish Women’s Educational Association hosts their annual Swedish Christmas Bazaar at the House of Sweden on the Georgetown waterfront. If you’ve never visited the House of Sweden, then it’s worth hitting the bazaar just to see the amazing building that houses the Swedish and Icelandic Embassies. The all-glass, linear building juts out over the Potomac, giving visitors panoramic views of the river and the monuments downstream.
This Saturday, their doors open for all visitors. The Swedish Christmas Bazaar is free to attend, and activities abound all day. Children from the Swedish School will sing Christmas Carols in their native tongue. There’s an arts and crafts room for kids to make authentic Swedish works, and all the while, authentic Swedish textiles, crafts and artwork will be for sale.
The bazaar will also be selling baked goods and traditional delicacies. Be sure not to miss out on the traditional Swedish mulled wine, or glogg. The event ends at five with St. Lucia’s procession, an historic Swedish celebration, where people dressed in white perform a candlelight procession to honor the patron saint of light and sweets.
If European bazaars like this pique your interest, there’s another opportunity to attend one that’s just up the road from the House of Sweden, and it’s also on Saturday.
At the German School in Potomac, Maryland, the annual German Christmas Bazaar is this Saturday, running from noon to five. The event kicks off with a musical welcome, much like the Swedish festival. The German Christmas Bazaar is also free to attend, with a list of vendors just as diverse. Among the items available for purchase at the German Christmas Bazaar are Turkish textiles, dried wreaths and smoked German almonds. There will also be a German butcher and Swiss baker to satiate any authentic food cravings you may have. Additionally, throughout the day activities for children are held.
Hopefully you’ll be able to check some people off your gift list Saturday at these authentic shops, but don’t forget about the other traditional activity – seeing Santa. Since you’ve done some unconventional shopping, stick with the theme of keeping things different this year. Up in Olney, Maryland, there’s an opportunity to do just that.
If the unseasonable warmth of the past few days has left you confused about what season it’s supposed to be, then the 11th Annual SCUBA Santa Food Drive will leave you totally discombobulated.
Every year, the Olney SCUBA Adventure Dive Club hosts a food drive for the Manna Food Club. By bringing canned or non-perishable food, or a $5.00 cash donation, you can create one of the craziest Christmas cards possible. That’s because Santa, in full dress, grabs SCUBA gear and sets up for the day at the bottom of the Olney Swim Center. Guests can then don goggles and dive in while an underwater photographer snaps a picture of you with Kris Kringle.
So this year, with all these opportunities, skip the mall, crowds and lines and do something uniquely unconventional.
- David
Silver Spring’s Fillmore Takes The Music Scene By Storm
If you thought you heard the sounds of heavy bass and thumping beats emanating from near Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, you weren’t mistaken. One of the largest acts in electronic music history took the stage at one of the best venues in the area.
But he wasn’t spinning at the 9:30 Club or Merriweather Post Pavilion or Jiffy Lube Live. No, Moby, one of the best-selling artists in music history, was not playing at a traditional Washington, D.C. venue. He spent Wednesday night in Silver Spring.
What could attract a mainstream act to go outside this city’s confines and popular spots? One of the biggest and best music venues to hit the scene in decades.
On Thursday, September 15th, just a little over a month ago, the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland burst on to the scene with a raucous Mary J. Blige concert. Ever since then, it’s been packed with acts, household names that have sold out the place even on weeknights. The Fillmore is making what was once a quiet suburb bordering Northwest, D.C. the place to see music in the area.
If the name rings a bell, it’s because the Fillmore takes its cues from one of the most historic sites in music history. In the early 1960s, the original Fillmore opened in downtown San Francisco in the midst of the burgeoning Bay Area music scene. There, it played host to some of the most famous names of the Woodstock-era, with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Sly and the Family Stone all taking the stage.
As its popularity grew, the owner opened a sister location in New York, and eventually the Fillmore name became synonymous with showcasing top draws. Later on, the brand was purchased by concert behemoth LiveNation, and they’ve been opening a string of Fillmore’s across the country. The Silver Spring location is their Fillmore foray into Washington, D.C.
They couldn’t have picked a better location than 8656 Colesville Road. The spot is barely a mile past the D.C. border, just off of 16th Street. And the area around the concert venue is one of the D.C. metro area’s developing spots.
The venue itself, if traveling down Colesville, is impossible to miss. The Fillmore is inside an old J.C. Penney’s, which developers spent nearly a decade attempting to get permission to renovation into a concert hall.
When they finally secured the permit, they went bold. The exterior channels an art-deco homage, with a giant, sparkling Fillmore sign, 20 yards wide and 15 feet of the ground, screaming to passersby. Next to the marquee is a constantly flickering tower of lights that represents the bars of an equalizer. It’s a spectacle, but one that doesn’t seem out of place.
The inside recreates the atmosphere of the original Fillmore in San Francisco. Dancers groove on hardwood floors with gigantic chandeliers—a Fillmore trait—hanging over them. Along the walls hanging burgundy curtains, just like the original spot. The hallways pay tribute to the amazing acts that have passed through the original Fillmore, with concert posters from shows by Tom Jones, the B-52s, Joan Jett and hundreds of others. Above the dance floor is a tiered-balcony, typically reserved for VIP access, which calls to mind the balcony at the 9:30 Club.
The size of the Fillmore already makes it one of the largest concert halls in the area, capable of holding over 2,000 people for a single show. And while they’ve already seen some of the most popular acts in music pass through their doors in just a brief month, they have no intentions of slowing down. The next few months the Fillmore will host Kid Rock, Ziggy Marley, LMFAO and, in December, 80s sensation Cheap Trick.
Since it only just opened last month, the odds are that you haven’t visited the Fillmore yet. So check the schedule and be sure to visit the most happening spot in Silver Spring.
- David
Halloween Haunts Abound in Washington, D.C.
There’s just a week and half until to the spookiest season of the year. Halloween is one of the few times where both kids and adults get to act like children, and in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding areas, there are an unlimited number of activities to indulge your ghoulish side. From pumpkin patches and haunted houses to corn mazes and ghost tours, there is no reason this year to not go out and enjoy the fright.
To begin the season, everyone needs a jack-o-lantern. What’s Halloween without a big orange pumpkin placed outside the front door? Anyone can walk to their local Harris Teeter and grab a gourd, but this year, visit a farm for a bigger selection and better time.
Homestead Farm, in Poolesville, Maryland, is only a few miles west of the Beltway and has everything one wants in a fall farm: apple picking, corn mazes and pumpkins that cost just 59 cents a pound. The farm is open seven days a week, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., so swing by anytime to pick up a pumpkin.
In Virginia, Ticonderoga Farms and its Fall Pumpkin Festival, is the spot to visit. Just south of Dulles, pumpkins may be the least exciting part of your visit. Among the attractions at Ticonderoga are hayrides, hillside slides, Native America Teepees and the longest swinging bridge in Virginia. And Ticonderoga is also open every day of the week, from 9 a.m – 5 p.m.
Since farms are only open during the day, what’s there to do with the nights?
This weekend is one of Washington’s biggest Halloween events, Boo at the Zoo, which runs all three weekend nights, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the National Zoo. For the event, the zoo transforms into a giant Halloween haunt for children, with decorations, spooky trails and opportunities to see your favorite October animals, like spiders and bats. There will also be volunteers in costumes, passing out candy to kids at 40 different spots within the zoo.
Tickets for the event cost $20 for Friends of the National Zoo and $30 for non-members.
While Boo at the Zoo will provide scares to children, this area is replete with places for adults to get the chills while walking around.
Inside Washington, D.C. Lafayette Square Park is known as the most haunted spot in the area. Washington Walks puts on a tour that takes people around some of the most cursed locations in Northwest, telling tales of murder and intrigue. The tour cost $15 dollars, and is held Thursday-Saturday. Tickets can be bought online, but reservations don’t need to be made in advance. You can just show up and pay.
In Virginia, the spot to go for ghost tours is Old Town, Alexandria. Alexandria Colonial Tours, during the Halloween season, takes people through a lantern-lit graveyard tour. For just $12, on any night of the week, you can be led through the cobblestone streets of Old Town by a local dressed in traditional Colonial garb, while he or she tells murder mysteries that are nearly 300 years old.
In Maryland, the place to go for Halloween haunts is Annapolis. Annapolis Ghost Tours leads nighttime walks through the maritime port. If you’re without children, the company’s haunted pub crawl is one of the most fun activities the area has to offer. A $20 ticket takes you to three of the most haunted pubs in Annapolis, where you hear stories of ghost and ghouls who still frequent their favorite watering hole. Starting at 9:00 p.m. on both nights of the weekend, the trip is not to be missed.
So make this Halloween the most haunted yet, and visit many of the great attractions Washington, D.C. has to offer.
-David
