Twas the WEEK before Christmas....

so much to catch up on....so much to do!  Bare with me through many pictures as I recap through all that's been going on in preparation for the holidays!

For those of you who don't know, I work about 5 blocks from the White House so going to see the National Christmas tree is a yearly event for us!  This year, I had some co-workers who wanted to go see the tree during lunchtime as a "field trip" so here are a few pictures of the tree during the day

This was the first time I've ever gone over during the day to see the tree, and while it was enjoyable to have small crowds, the tree wasn't too special during the day w/o the lights on!

I did get a good shot of the South Side of the White House and I saw Michele Obama's garden for the first time (it's just to the left in this picture - though you can't see it here, it's rather close to the black fence)

Sunday (12/18) was my 28th birthday, but we ended up celebrating all weekend long (which I loved!)  Jonathan took me out for a wonderful dinner at Restaurant Eve in Old Town on Friday evening - here's a picture of me with dessert

Saturday night was our annual Christmas/Holly's birthday party with good friends, Christmas cookies and of course GLOGG!  Sunday was spent relaxing, doing some final Christmas shopping and wrapping presents.  Great weekend all around!

Last night, Jonathan and I went to see the National Christmas tree - this time in the evening so all the lights were lit.  For those of you who don't know, it's a new tree this year.  Back in February the old tree fell down in a storm.  The new tree, which I believe was brought in from New Jersey is around 20 feet shorter than the tree that was standing....if you can't tell from the pictures above, it was a bit anti-climatic during the day.  It was much prettier last night with all the lights on, and quite festive

The Yule-Log is seriously a giant fire pit in the lawn of the Eclipse, it's wonderful, especially on a cold December night!  It was about 50 degrees last night, but it was still nice to stand by :-)

Just for comparison sake, here is a picture of the old tree from last year

This certainly also allows you to see how much better the photo quality is with my new camera!

Regardless of the years of good lights and decorations vs. the tackier years, a tree of that size is definitely much more magical, at least to me!!

Let's see....what else have I been up to?  Oh!  All my Christmas gifts are wrapped, expect for anything that I purchase last minute once up in WNY this weekend.  I have one project that I took photos of last night to share, but those photos are sitting on my laptop at home...should make for a good WIP post tomorrow!

Here are a few more of my favorite ornaments on our Maryland tree:

I swear there really is more than Disney ornaments on our Christmas tree, but when I start talking about my favorites, these are it!  This one, also came from our Engagement trip back in 2010.  With a birthday 1 week before Christmas I love everything with holly on it so this was a definite purchase when going through the shops last year!

I also really love my Yankee's snowman!  He lights up as well (which I usually forget to turn on), but he's cute either way!

This is not so much an ornament, but a pretty view under my tree!  This is the first year I've wrapped my presents far enough in advance to have them under the tree for a couple of days!  Usually they go right into bags for transport home.  It's extra work to have to pack them up this week, but very festive to see them under the tree and enjoy my wrapping paper.  No bows yet, those will go on in NY before they go under Mom and Dad's tree.  Obviously the star of this photo are my new birthday shoes!  I'm OBSESSED with them!  I got justified buying them for the party on Saturday night, and wore them to work yesterday.  They're wonderful.  I plan to plan my outfits for tomorrow and Thursday around them to continue wearing showing them off in the office!

For those of you still will me in the long winded update, I'd like to wish my Grannie a very Happy 88th Birthday today!

Birthday party at Mom & Dad's in 2010

How's everyone else doing in preparation for this week?  Are you still on schedule?  Are you still reminding yourself that Christmas is actually coming up THIS weekend?