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Amid the dull annual routine of the family sweater swap and the ceremonial burning of the tree, start a new holiday tradition that pairs warm holiday treats with sophisticated eye-feasts. Today's Groupon gets you special exhibition admission to The Phillips Collection, one of DC's finest art museums and the very first modern art museum in the country, paradoxically making it a classic modern art museum. For $7, you get access to the permanent collection, as well as the special exhibition of African art objects and photographs by avant-garde artist Man Ray and his contemporaries. Warm up from the cold or rest your feet during your visit with your choice of hot cocoa or hot apple cider from the museum’s On The Fly cafe, included in the value of your Groupon. Because the Man Ray exhibition is only open for a limited time, your Groupon expires on January 10, 2010. Head to the museum during the holidays to pick up last-minute gifts for your art-loving uncle, with 20% off all purchases at the museum shop. (Admission to museum and Man Ray exhibition, complimentary cafe drink, and store discount must be redeemed on same visit.)

The internationally recognized Dupont Circle landmark features an exquisite collection of modern and impressionist works housed in an 1897 Georgian Revival mansion. The Phillips Collection includes paintings by Degas, Matisse, Bonnard, O'Keeffe, van Gogh, and Diebenkorn, among other influential artists. Check out the museum's signature work, Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party and meditate surrounded by rich colors in the intimate Rothko Room. The collection has greatly expanded since its founding in 1921, with multiple extensions and four-car garages added on to the distinctive original home.

After your aspiring photographers get their digital cameras for Christmas, allow their budding artistic eyes to see through the fully-flowered eyes of influential avant artists at Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens. In this well-designed exhibition, viewers will be able to see the objects photographed alongside the images these influential photographers produced. Seeing the real thing beside the art that depicts it allows the viewer to fully appreciate the vision, angle, lighting, and composition that contributed to the artist's work. Milk your city of its nourishing cultural value this winter and add a artful flair to your holiday traditions with today's Groupon.

Reviews

The Phillips Collection is a Washington Post Editors' Pick. New York Times and Brightest Young Things rave about the intimate collection and new Man Ray exhibit, and Yelpers give The Phillips Collection a near-perfect 4.5 stars:

• The Phillips show is, also, probably one of the most interesting shows you’ll see this year because, aside from being visually beautiful to look at, it also has a very clear, academically minded narrative... It is fascinating to see the artefacts next to the photos they were used in, next to the magazines they were originally published in, next to the related other work by the movement’s contributors (which include, Man Ray aside, Walker Evans and Cecil Beaton, Alfred Stieglitz and others). – Svetlana, Brightest Young Things
• The nation's oldest modern-art institution, it predates the Museum of Modern Art in New York by almost a decade. – Elizabeth Olson, New York Times
• A list of artists represented in the Phillips Collection reads like a who's who of modern art. – Julia Beizer, Washington Post