And to All a Goodnight

We’re dropping the standard format and it’s a short newsletter this week as we, like many of you, are already rolling into holiday celebrations and travel and whatnot (Becky in fact has already ventured beyond the borders of our fair city to the distant, strange, and unsustainably arid lands of the American Southwest) but we wanted to get a post up to 1) let anyone who wants to chat in the comments chat in the comments and 2) to wish you all a wonderful holiday and a happy new year. We can’t believe this is the 17th (17th!!) issue of the newsletter, we were sure we’d either run out of things to say after a few weeks [Editor’s note: no we weren’t] or we wouldn’t find an audience that warmed to our particular gumbo of Gen-X/Millennial culture references, internet memes, and thesaurus-humping [Editor’s note: also, Bad Bunny]. But we didn’t, and we did, and we just want to once again thank you all for your interest and support that makes this effort possible. And if you’re looking for a last minute gift for that hard-to-shop-for local affairs obsessive, consider a gift subscription to the best newsletter about Alexandria written by two people with the same names as Full House characters.

We’ll be back with you on January 4th and until then, we’ll leave you with one last round-up of local links.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• The people* have spoken and the people love snow days! (*It was actually just Russ Adams taking the poll 450 times.)
• The schedule and tickets for First Night can be found here, and if you haven’t done this before it’s a super cool family-friendly arts-oriented evening that you can spend dragging your increasingly comatose children around until you end up rucking 65 pounds of slumbering toddler through the streets of Alexandria which sounds bad until you realize you’re just getting an early jump on your fitness resolutions.
• Not only does AlexRenew take all our crap but it turns out they also give a crap, launching a new assistance program for neighbors having difficulty affording their sewer bill. [Editor’s note: Becky emphatically does not speak on behalf of AlexRenew for purposes of this newsletter but emphatically does encourage you to donate to this new assistance fund if you’re feeling charitably minded this holiday season!]
• DC is dealing with the threat of “zombie streams” which somehow has nothing to do with Strawberry Run rising from the dead after being (not) bulldozed.
• Alexandria beat out Arlington to have the highest per-square-foot home sale price in Northern Virginia this year. WOOHOO! EAT IT, ARLINGTON oh wait this is actually not a good thing? Shit.
• When it comes to coverage of The Arena That Shall Not Be Named Be Named Once Bidding Surpasses the Reserve Price, over the last week the Washington Post wrote about it. And wrote about it. And wrote about it. And wrote about it. And we’re glad to see the coverage, truly! We all want and need to learn more about this opportunity, and we readily accept that this is going to be the most pressing topic of conversation for the rest of the year (or at least until the Commanders announce they’re relocating to Eisenhower Avenue in April). If we might offer one very modest editorial note on their coverage—it would be nice if fewer Posties disdainfully characterized us as some backwater suburb, it’s just a very rude way to talk about your older sibling.
• Ok fine, one more arena link—we really enjoyed and appreciated this Drew Hansen perspective on the situation.

See you next year everyone!

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.