White House Christmas Tree and Menorah

We usually hang around the Capitol and the National Mall when we drive in to town for a morning walk at least once a week. We lived on Capitol Hill for thirteen years and are very familiar with the area. It’s also a great place to take photos for the weekly 52Frames challenge. Last week took us in another direction. We hadn’t been around the White House for a while. So we found our favorite parking area by the Tidal Basin and walked in that direction. First you pass through the WWII Memorial and the Washington Monument. We crossed constitution avenue and passed by all of the street vendors, then headed towards the White House Christmas tree. It was still early enough in the morning that the crowds had not quite emerged - that’s the way I prefer it. The Menorah area was also being set up for the event scheduled for the weekend. There were a lot of workers hoisting chairs around and the area was fenced off. The White House is even more fenced off than before. You can’t even get close enough to the metal barrier to get a decent photo without bars. The Christmas tree is rather underwhelming! It’s quite small compared to the Capitol tree that is hauled in every year from various parts of the country. Surrounding the White House tree are smaller trees from each state and territory. We have driven near this area in the evening - it’s a lot prettier when all of the lights are on. But we don’t drive that much at night any more. That was the advantage of living on the hill - we could walk everywhere. It turned out to be a beautiful day with clear blue skies and pleasantness about. I always imagine all of the people who have to travel here to see these things. For us it’s just a twenty minute drive or so. It’s nice to be so close to all of the traditions.