Six years ago we went up to Antietam National Battlefield to see the illuminations. It's held on the first Saturday in December every year. This year it was on December 3rd, so Kent and I left shortly after noon to drive to Maryland. Our friends, the Burketts, followed in their car.
Traffic wasn't too bad so we made it up to the Marriott we were staying at in Hagerstown by around 3pm. We checked in and rested a bit, then drove to Antietam. The illumination was scheduled to start at 6pm but we knew from past experience to get in the line early, so shortly after 4pm we got in the line.
Our place in line was near the house pictured below, which is a small visitor's center for the battlefield. We left the car parked on the side of the road and went into the house to look around.
This information board about the battle was inside the visitor's center.
The luminaries below spell out: Antietam 154 years.
They had more impact after it got darker.
At 6pm the cars start driving through the battlefield. Cars are supposed to have their headlights off and aren't allowed to stop. That made taking any good pictures impossible. There are 23,000 luminaries, the number of men killed in a single day at the Battle of Antietam.
In a few places there were Civil War reenactors gathered around campfires.
This is the Maryland Monument, a photo I got off the National Park Service website.
After the illumination we went out to eat in Hagerstown and then went back to our hotel and played one round of a game with the Burketts before we called it a night. We didn't have a stressful schedule, which was nice. Kent and I got up early the next morning and drove back on clear roads to Stafford.
Just a few days later I gathered a few friends to go to the Christmas open house at the National Headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
It's an imposing looking building very near to the White House in downtown DC.
I drove us in to DC and picked up Kent at Arlington Cemetery. He drove us over to the DAR and dropped us off. Here's our group--Karen Smith, me, Becky Reger and Teri Ross.
This was the patriotically decorated tree set up in the entrance.
The first thing we did was to go into the library and research center.
It was an imposing space!
In another room there was a refreshment table and a jolly visitor to greet any children who had come.
We spent over an hour going through the building, that had "period rooms"--rooms set up to represent different states and eras in the United States. Several of them were set up with Christmas decorations.
I also liked seeing the different types of pianos.
I wish I'd taken a photo of the states and years of these rooms.
Some of the rooms also had clothing on display to represent the era.
This was a children's play room.
We asked someone to take our picture in front of the tree in the foyer just before we left. We would have happily stayed longer, but the open house ended at 8pm and they started closing things down promptly at 8pm!
Kent had found a parking space a block away and had come into the open house for a little while, but we didn't see him much. He picked us up at the front of the building as we came out. It was a fun and interesting evening, and something I hadn't done before in DC at Christmas time.
No comments:
Post a Comment