Thursday, January 12, 2012

Winter Inspiration: Visit the James Center

First item checked off my Winter Inspiration board is visiting the James Center!

We didn't make it until the 23rd, but that's still before Christmas! :)  I wasn't going to miss going to see this spectacular display - it's so festive and fun!  We got there at twilight to visit the Very Richmond gallery before it closed.  We rushed by some of the lights to make sure we got inside by 6pm, when the store was closing, and I tried to use my blinders so I wouldn't ruin the experience since it wasn't dark.  I know that's weird. :)

After browsing the gallery and not finding exactly what I was looking for (which I got for Christmas anyways, yay!), we wandered around the Omni lobby, which is decorated with fishing penguins, nutcrackers, and gingerbread houses!  So fun!


Now it's dark - back outside!  All the bank buildings surrounding the courtyard decorate their buildings for the season, and every tree is filled with tons of lights!  They create a canopy of Christmas - I love it! There are hundreds of pre-lit deer statues and lanterns hanging from some trees' branches...


The clock tower is one of my favorite parts - bells chime on the hour.  There was also a saxophonist playing Christmas carols :)

Sorry for the no-makeup, messy-hair, gray sweatshirt twins...well, Dave shouldn't be wearing makeup, but you get it.  It was vacation.  Who wears makeup and combs their hair on vacation?  Not this girl!
The random stranger Dave chose to take this photo was a perfectionist!  She must have taken 5 or 6 shots because she wasn't happy with the people:tree ratio or she cut off a deer's rear-end.  It was funny. Maybe you had to be there :)

On the way home, with our tummies grumbling for the chili that was cooking in the crock pot at home, we stopped by the Capitol to check out the tree on the portico.  The tree lighting was delayed because Spielberg and his peeps were filming a movie, Lincoln, on the Capitol steps in the weeks leading up to Christmas and they had built a new facade to make the building historically accurate for the 1860's.  They got out of Dodge a couple weeks before Christmas, so the lighting ceremony still happened, just a little behind schedule.  Phew, did that send all of Richmond into a tizzy!

Fun Friday in the RVA :)

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