Declaring Independence

This year we are not traveling for Christmas. Instead, we are staying right here. This is the first time in my life that I will not be either with my family or Matt's for Christmas. It's kind of a crazy thing. I guess it means that we are finally adults or something like that.

So it means that we have taken on new responsibilities. For instance, I am 100% responsible for Christmas eve dinner. And someone is going to have to stuff those stockings. I've never done that before. We're even playing Santa - we've never done that either. It's kinda weird.

It's also a great opportunity for Matt and me to really create our own traditions. So we've been going through our various family Christmas traditions and deciding what we do and do not want to do. It's been a lot of fun.

The other thing I really like about staying home is taking advantage of all of the wonderful Christmas events that DC has to offer. I can't believe how fortunate we are to live in a city that has so many things to do at Christmastime - many of which are free. Here's a quick list of everything we done so far:

The Alexandria treelighting ceremony, the DAR Museum Christmas open house, the LDS temple Christmas lights and concert (twice), the santa train, the National Christmas tree, the US Botanical Gardens Christmas train exhibit, the Merry TubaChristmas concert, the National Symphony Orchestra Christmas concert, the Washington Chorus Christmas concert, not mention some really fun parties.

I really love DC and I'm so glad we are here for Christmas, and all of the year for that matter. I suppose most people like where they live. But I truly enjoy my life here in DC. The love affair started 9 years ago when I interned here for the summer and it has only continued from there. Now that we are actually spending Christmas here in DC, I feel as though my conversion to the DC and the east coast is truly complete. That is not to say that I don't love the west and of course, I want to visit it as much as possible. But I think we've really found the place we love and that we would be happy to live forever in. When I worked for a Nevada senator, we would often refer to the title of the state song, Home Means Nevada. For me, though I feel like I can honestly say Home Means Virginia, northern Virginia, that is.