Here are three beautiful things from the first week of the new year:

1. Technically, this happened the week of Christmas, but I only heard about it this week (thanks for the heads-up, DOD!), so I’m including it today. Anyway, as people from the UK and anyone who’s watched Love Actually know, the British charts have a competition relating to the #1 song on the charts the week of Christmas. This year, the organizers behind a charity single mashup of “Bridge over Troubled Water” and “Fix You” benefiting small healthcare organizations and recorded by the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir announced they were going to make a run at being Christmas Number One. Justin Bieber, who was heavily favored to take home the prize, asked his supporters to forgo buying his single that week and instead to buy “A Bridge over You,” vaulting them to victory. It was just really a class move, you know?

2. As of my walk home tonight, there are five Christmas trees piled at the other end of my block awaiting collection by the city for recycling purposes. Because their owners got them out so early, they smell especially pine-fresh whenever one walks past them.

3. Rudi, who spent an extra week in New England after the holidays coaching his ski team at a camp in Vermont, arrived back in D.C. Monday night. The cats and I missed him.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?