See a guide to the top events going on this weekend in Washington, DC and the surrounding communities:

• Washington Craft Show - November 6-8, 2009. Washington Convention Center. The annual craft show features contemporary crafts created by more than 180 artists including metal, leather, basketry, jewelry, ceramics, glass and more.
  
  
• Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show - November 7-8, 2009. Washington Convention Center. Attend a consumer event focusing on food and entertaining with more than 150 exhibitors including specialty food companies, caterers, party planners, personal chefs, kitchen planners and appliance manufacturers.
  
  
• FotoWeek DC - November 7-14, 2009. The second annual celebration of photography in Washington, DC, will feature programs including a photo contest and juried exhibition, gallery openings, lectures, educational workshops, portfolio reviews, book signings and more.
  
  Berlin Wall Family Day at the Newseum - November 8, 2009, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with fun-filled activities and events for the entire family.
  
  
• Pumpkin Madness Days at Cox Farms - November 4-8, 2009. Centreville, VA. Last chance of the season to enjoy a hayride and smash a pumpkin. The local farm closes the fall festival with a special event where pumpkins meet their fate by being squished, hurled, smashed, thrown, and dropped.
  
  
• Kids Euro Festival - Through November 10, 2009. The event includes more than 150 free performances around the city staged through the cooperation of the 27 Washington-based European Union embassies and more than a dozen major local cultural institutions. Geared to children ages 6-12.
  
  
• DRACULA, A Family Musical - Weekends through November 8, 2009, 1:30 p.m. The Shops at Georgetown Park, 3222 M Street, NW Washington, DC. Georgetown Theatre Company presents a 40-minute family-friendly haunted show based on the novel by Bram Stoker.
  
  
• Rockville American Indian Festival - November 7, 2009, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Montgomery County Executive Office Building, 101 Monroe Street, terrace and lobby levels. The Grand Entry, featuring a parade of dancers, posting of the colors and presentation of the proclamation, will begin at noon. The festival will also include musical performances, crafts and educational speakers.
  
  
• American Freedom Festival - November 7, 2009, 7:30 p.m. George Mason University Patriot Center, Fairfax, VA. Montgomery Gentry, Lee Ann Womack and Phil Vassar headline in the concert and tribute to America's Armed Forces. The Festival will be broadcast throughout the world to over 350 military bases in over 170 countries on the Pentagon Channel.

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Built in the 1880s as an office for the U.S. Pension Bureau, architect Montgomery C. Meigs designed the building that is now the National Building Museum with soldiers in mind. Architectural features were designed to honor the brave fighters of the Civil War and to accommodate the wounded veterans who frequented the building to collect their pensions.

On November 8, 2009, in honor of Veterans Day, the National Building Museum will offer a concert with the Navy Band, family activities, and special tours of its facility. Bring the family, a blanket, and picnic (food can be purchased in the cafe in the Museum's Great Hall) and enjoy a free, noon-time performance by the United States Navy Band Cruisers. Visitors can also take special tours and learn about the history of the Pension Building. The tours will focus on aspects of the Museum's historic home that are especially relevant on Veterans Day, such as:

• The 1,200-foot-long terra cotta frieze along the building's exterior, which depicts Union infantry, cavalry, artillery, navy, quartermaster, and medical units.
  
  
• Special consideration had to be made to prevent fire and protect the soldiers' records in the "New Pension Office," which led to Meigs' decision to construct the building out of bricks--15,500,000 in total.
  
  
• The stairs between the first three floors of the building were constructed especially wide and low to accommodate wounded soldiers on crutches.

Read More About Veterans Day Events in Washington DC

Ford's Theatre in Washington DC produces "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and adapted by Michael Wilson from November 23, 2009, to January 3, 2010. Join the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future as they lead the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge on a journey of transformation and redemption. Signature Theatre's Michael Baron directs a new staging that captures the magic and joy of Dickens's classic. Acclaimed Washington stage actor Edward Gero (Shakespeare Theatre Company's "King Lear," Round House's "Nixon's Nixon") plays Scrooge. This timeless tale of "A Christmas Carol" has been invigorated with fresh staging, additional carols and joyful dancing for the 2009 holiday season.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.com or TicketsNow.com

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Tickets for the National Christmas Tree Lighting will be distributed in a new way for 2009 - a lottery system. Tickets are required and will be distributed for FREE. The lottery system will be available at 12:01 a.m. EST on Wednesday November 4 and will remain open until 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, November 6. To participate, visit www.thenationaltree.org or call (877) 444-6777. The ticket lottery will include 2,800 ticketed seats and 7,000 standing room tickets (Note: standing room tickets are new this year, expanding the capacity) Successful ticket seekers will be notified by email or US mail (if applied by phone). Status of the lottery will be available online or by phone beginning on November 9. Tickets will be mailed to the lottery winners by November 15.

The lighting ceremony for the National Christmas Tree will be held on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. The holiday tradition marks the beginning of the four week Christmas Pageant of Peace. Read more about the National Christmas Tree and the Pageant of Peace.

Photo © Terry Adams/National Park Service

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This Thanksgiving Day, a television performance will debut of "Kaleidoscope" - a holiday variety special featuring Olympic skating champions and GRAMMY Award-winning music artists. The program is designed to recognize women and the key role they play in the battle against cancer - as patients, caregivers, and advocates. The show will feature the historic return to the ice of the legendary Scott Hamilton in his first television performance since being diagnosed with a brain tumor five years ago. Hamilton and Dorothy Hamill will skate to the music of fellow cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John and one of America's foremost music producers David Foster. Also performing are Olympic Champion Kristi Yamaguchi, two-time Olympic Medalist Nancy Kerrigan and Olympic figure skating hopefuls Johnny Weir and Rachael Flatt.

"Kaleidoscope" will be taped from the Verizon Center in Washington, DC on November 16, 2009 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the performance at Verizon Center are on sale now through Ticketmaster.com. The show will air nationally on FOX on Nov. 26, 2009 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. (EST), immediately following the FOX Thanksgiving Day football telecast.

© Kaleidoscope

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Have you ever squashed a pumpkin? Have you wanted to hurl one or stomp on one after Halloween was over? At Cox Farms in Centreville, Virginia, the grand finale of the season is Pumpkin Madness Days, November 4-8, 2009, when pumpkins meet their fate by being squished, hurled, smashed, thrown, and dropped. Visitors can also enjoy all of the usual attractions at the fall festival including hayrides, giant slides, farm animals and their babies, rope swings, live entertainment and the Cornundrum. Pumpkin Madness visitors are encouraged to bring their "used" jack-o-lanterns with them for smashing fun. Methods of pumpkin recycling include: the Pumpkin Catapult which sends the pumpkins flying all the way to the farm pond; Pumpkin High Drop; Pumpkin Squisher; Pumpkin Bowling; Pumpkin Toss; and Wall of Spikes. See Photos of Pumpkin Madness Days.

Photo © Cox Farms

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted trick-or-treaters and local school children at the north portico of the White House during a Halloween celebration on October 31, 2009 in Washington, DC. The Obamas celebrated their first Halloween in the White House by inviting students and military families over for the holiday. See photos of the Halloween celebration at the White House.

Photo © Getty Images

Day of the Dead / Los Días de los Muertos is a Mexican custom honoring and remembering those who have died. The celebration begins on midnight on October 31, the night of Halloween in the U.S. In Washington, DC, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of American History are co-sponsoring a celebration of the Day of the Dead with a two-day family-friendly event, October 31 and November 1, 2009, from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. The event will be held at the National Museum of the American Indian and includes live entertainment and hands-on craft activities including demonstrations of traditional papel picado ("cut paper work"), Sugar Skull, Ofrenda ("Altar" or "offering") featuring Guatemalan kites, Paper Sculpture and Paper Mache. The Museum's Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe will demonstrate how to prepare some of the special foods created for the Day of the Dead. See more about Day of the Dead events in Washington, DC.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Newseum in Washington DC will host a special program with Tom Brokaw and Robert MacNeil to explore the worldwide significance of the wall and how the media reported on the events surrounding it. The event takes place on Monday, Nov. 2, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater, Level 1. For nearly three decades, the Berlin Wall separated East and West Berliners and came to symbolize the Cold War struggle. It came down on Nov. 9, 1989. Brokaw reported live on the dismantling of the wall and was the only broadcast network anchor on the scene. He is currently a special correspondent for NBC News. MacNeil covered the construction of the wall as a London-based NBC News correspondent. He is best known for co-anchoring "The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" on PBS with fellow journalist Jim Lehrer. The program will incorporate compelling footage chronicling events as they unfolded. General admission: $25 Newseum members: $20.

Candlelight tours are a favorite holiday celebration in the Washington, DC area. Visitors learn about the Christmas traditions of George Washington and his family, meet historic characters and tour the Mount Vernon Estate by candlelight. Following the Mansion tour, guests are invited to stroll candlelit walks, join in fireside caroling, and enjoy complimentary hot cider and cookies. Tickets will be on sale beginning November 1, 2009.

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_{Photo © Mount Vernon Ladies Assoc.}