Virginia Dresses for December

Northern Virginia concentrates its Christmas into the first weekend of December with a coordination that looks planned, the old port marching its Scottish walk, the courthouse town lighting its square, and the hunt country parading its hounds down the main street, and the traveler with one free December weekend can run all three, a corridor of about fifty miles and three centuries. The route works as a two-night run and books, per the standing rules, well ahead.

Start Saturday morning in Old Town for the Scottish Christmas walk, the parade of clans, pipes and drums by the dozen bands, Scottie dogs in tartan marching in their own division, that the city has held for generations in honor of its founders, and stay for the boat parade of lights on the Potomac at dusk, the marina's fleet cruising the waterfront strung stem to stern. King Street between events, per the town's pieces, handles the eating and the wreath-viewing.

Move west for the courthouse town's tree lighting and lit December streets, the old blocks at their most persuasive after dark, and take the estate gardens' holiday programs on the town's edge, greens workshops and candlelight tours per the town's piece in these pages, with the night at a fireside inn.

Finish Sunday in the hunt country capital ahead of its famous parade weekend, or time the whole run one week later and reverse it, since the hounds process, per the village's own piece, on the first Saturday of December, and the two anchor weekends conveniently flank each other. Either way, close with the four o'clock drive out the gravel lanes, stone walls and chimney smoke, which is Virginia's December stated in one unhurried mile.