If you find yourself down by the Portrait Gallery in Chinatown before Christmas, you will come face to face with holiday commerce in a recession.  The Holiday Market, a veritable tent city along F Street, has all manner of handmade gifts for sale at reasonable-esque prices.

From December 3-23, the white-top tents will house many options for jewelry, art prints, clever tshirts, table decor, and, of course, whimsical hats.

My favorite gift options were found at the Jon Wye tent.  There was a robot eating breakfast shirt.  Awesome.

My favorite favorite item, however, was the paper bag of freshly fried mini donuts I chose to cover with powdered sugar, which won out over the other topping choices.  Zeke’s Coffee was the busiest booth on the entire two block stretch, handing over donuts and coffee to chilly customers.  Words To Live By: if there are sweets, there should also be coffee.  And Zeke’s was all over it.

Strolling up and down, perusing the wares sans middle man was a nice respite from the Amazon and Target shopping that is just an easy out as the holidays approach.  It helped to be serenaded by the day’s musicians, playing that old holiday classic, Jambalaya.