12.03 - airing of grievances (all month long)
what’s going on in d.c.
Throughout December, Union Market is hosting Friday Night Lights, themed light and music shows. Tonight’s event, at 7 pm, is Disney themed.
Enchant Christmas, a giant Christmas-themed event that takes over Nationals Park features the world’s largest light maze and an ice-skating rink. Tickets are available through January 2.
The National Christmas Tree Lighting was yesterday, so beginning tomorrow, the public can visit the main tree and the smaller state-themed trees displayed in the shadow of The White House.
The Wharf’s annual holiday boat parade is on Saturday, with 60+ seasonally decorated boats cruising the channel. Events start at 6 p.m.
Sunday, Glen Echo Park is hosting a Chanukah Celebration with two shows and a party. The event runs from 2-5:30. Or, if you’d rather join a celebration tonight, there is a Shabbanukah event at Union Market with latkes from Buffalo Bergen.
Washingtonian compiled a very comprehensive list of holiday activities in the D.C. area that’s probably worth bookmarking.
coming soon: An Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the luxury theater chain with a cult following, opens near the Rhode Island Ave Metro next Friday.
let’s talk food and drinks
my weekly best bite: butternut squash agnolotti at RPM
A chocolate shop, Petite Soeur, offering hand-painted bonbons and other treats, is now open in Georgetown. The photos of the treats are mouth-watering.
For Seinfeld fans, The Passenger is celebrating festivus, the anti-holiday that popularized the airing of grievances. The Shaw bar is decorated in the spirit of the non-holiday.
If a more traditional holiday bar is your vibe, Eater put together a guide of the area’s holiday-themed bars.
what’s on our minds?
D.C. Public Schools enrollment declined again this school year, despite hopes and projections by administrators that more families would return after the 2020-21 school year. Overall, about 49k students attend D.C.’s traditional public schools, an number down from the district’s enrollment high in 2019-20. Pre-K and Kindergarten enrollment continues to be down as well, which could signal that parents are choosing to educate children themselves or select private school options, but also may indicate younger children in the District aren’t receiving any formal education. Given the criticality of early learning in brain development and academic success, it’ll be important for D.C. to ensure our youngest population is, in fact, learning.
DCist has a nice profile on Afghan sisters that evacuated to Fairfax after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The sisters are part of a group of young people living in a Fairfax hotel and hoping to rebuild their lives in the United States.
Not D.C. specific, but set your clocks for 2 p.m. EST on December 7 if you want to have the chance to rent out the McCallister’s Chicago home and live your own Home Alone fantasies.
Quick links to other weekly #goodreads:
How ‘Shadow’ Foster Care Is Tearing Families Apart - per The New York Times Magazine, “Across the country, an unregulated system is severing parents from children, who often end up abandoned by the agencies that are supposed to protect them.”
The Teenagers Getting Six Figures to Leave Their High Schools for Basketball - per The New York Times Magazine, “The new pro league Overtime Elite is luring young phenoms with hefty salaries, viral success and — perhaps — a better path to the N.B.A.”
How Child Care Became the Most Broken Business in America - per Bloomberg Businessweek, “Biden has a plan to make day care more affordable for parents—if the providers don’t go out of business first.”
what are we watching/reading?
An odd, but bingeworthy, documentary hit Hulu last month - The Curse of Von Dutch: A Brand to Die For. The three-parter chronicles the strange beginnings and even more dramatic end to the Von Dutch brand, which hit peak popularity in the early 2000s thanks to a cult following by that era’s top celebs.
In other Hulu news, the company was forced to pull a documentary, Astroworld: Concert From Hell, after outrage over the insensitive timing and click-baity aspects of the feature.