Our Thanksgiving Day this year was eventful. 🙂 Dave and I started our day with the 90-minute Burn the Bird: Thanksgiving Hot Flow yoga workshop at Honest Soul Yoga (HSY). HSY is a Power Yoga studio in the Kingstowne area of Alexandria Virginia, which offers a variety of yoga classes every week.
The workshop was very well organized, studio was hot enough, so we felt like we accomplished something before indulging ourselves with the Turkey dinner. 🙂 We felt good about donating the workshop fees with all proceeds to the USO-Metro, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “serving those who serve, and their families” in Washington D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia. Here is our group picture right after the workshop.
Source: HSY Facebook page
Then, we had a lot of fun preparing food together and ate a lot of it afterwards. The turkey breast came out really good, as well as the side dishes (roasted peas and carrots, green beans, yucca with garlic sauce, sweet potato and homemade cranberry sauce).
Around 5 P.M. we arrived at the Gaylord Resort at the National Harbor for the D.C. region holiday attraction ICE!. We caught a beautiful sunset on our way to the resort.
We passed through the festive North Pole Village on our way to the ICE! entrance area.
The village offers a Christmas Shoppe, a carousel ride, hot cocoa and Gingerbread Decorating Corner, where kids were building gingerbread houses or decorating gingerbread cookies.
ICE! just started about 5 days ago and today, on non-peak day, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it would be closer to Christmas. We already had tickets and there was almost no line. We were happy about that, because according to some recent reviews, visitors had to wait about 2-3 hours in line to see the ice sculptures. ICE! employees provided us with blue parkas for the tour. We really needed them with a chilling nine degrees Fahrenheit inside the tent.
Picture taken by ICE! before the beginning of the tour.
A view of the Waterfront near the ICE! tent.
Ready to enter the freezing tent.
This year ICE! features the classic television special, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. It’s a winter wonderland interactive attraction featuring ten different, larger-than-life scenes, created entirely of 5,000 BLOCKS of ice hand-sculpted by 40 international artisans. The theme includes scenes such as: Burgermeister outlawing toys in Sombertown, Winter Warlock’s heart melting and Kris Kringle becoming Santa Claus, among others. They have wonderful themes each year. My post about ICE! 2013 can be viewed here.
There are several rooms of the icy sculptures. Here is a sign where Special Delivery “S.D.” Kluger tells the story of how Santa Claus came to be, as he prepares his mail truck to deliver children’s letters to the North Pole.
There was a warning sign next to the Warlock sculpture stating: “You are trespassing on the land of the Winter Warlock.”
Entering Sombertown.
In the television classic Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Kris Kringle wanted to deliver toys to the children of Sombertown. But its Burgermeister is too mean to let that happen. Kris Kringle in Sombertown.
Kris and Jessica are married in the decorated wooded glen surrounded by all of their friends. Kris and Jessica.
The Burgermeister outlaws all toys in Sombertown after tripping on a toy duck and declares that anyone found possessing a toy will be arrested.
Jessica pleads with Winter to use his magic to help everyone escape. However, The only magic Winter has left is in the form of feed corn that makes reindeer fly.
When Kris is old enough, he sets off to deliver toys to Sombertown, meeting a lost penguin on his way, whom he named Topper.
Kris sneaks back to Sombertown and attempts to deliver more toys by entering through the children’s fireplaces, but The Burgermeister set up a trap for Kris and captures him and his friends.
Now that S.D. Kluger has told the story of how Santa Claus came to be, he must be on his way to deliver children’s letters to the North Pole.
After the Winter Warlock captures Kris and he gives him a toy train as a present, his heart melts and they become friends. Winter Warlock and Kris Kringle.
At Santa’s Toy Factory with the slides on the sides.
Eventually, the The Burgermeister’s laws are abilished and toys are permitted in Somberton again. Children continue to send letters to Santa Claus and he decides to make one journey each year on Christmas Eve to deliver the toys.
We had to take advantage of a final photo up at the and of the tour.
AÂ life-sized Nativity scene in ice.
The Ice Angel at the exit.
We went through the exhibit in about 20 minutes because of those 9 degrees of Fahrenheit and continued exploring the resort. Gaylord Resort is an amazing place! It has spectacular holiday décor, including a 65-foot tall Christmas tree and more than two million lights that illuminate the 19-story glass atrium and outdoor garden areas.
The Christmas Village inside the resort.
We stayed for the Sounds & Songs of Christmas attraction, which represents both modern and classical Christmas carols synchronized to a fountain show. It was snowing inside 72 degree Fahrenheit atrium during the show.
Here is a view of the Gaylord glass atrium from outside.
The weather was gorgeous today – around 60 degrees, sunny and without wind. We enjoyed our walk around the beautifully decorated Waterfront Plaza, watching the Capital Wheel and beautiful Christmas tree.
On our way back to the car, we stopped for the Christmas Light Show, which plays each night through the holiday season, beginning a half hour after sunset and continuing every half hour until 9:30 p.m. Hope everyone enjoyed his/her Thanksgiving Day!
