Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Merry Festivus! Happy Hanukkah! Feliz Navidad! Happy Kwanzaa!

Soon little boys and girls will be squealing through the house, checking the plate of cookies and glass of milk to make sure Santa came, wondering what could be behind that wrapping paper with dancing bears and reindeer, and jumping up and down on the bed to wake you up.  Of course they don't know you went to bed a half hour ago because you just got done wrapping their gifts.  Merry Christmas Santa!  Ho! Ho! Ho!

But to me it is worth the lack of sleep for the hours of cutting, taping, stuffing, ribbon tying, and the paper cuts to watch them have that moment of wonderment, curiosity and eeps of glee in a hurricane flurry of tissue paper and pretty bows.  I do miss having a little one running around at times but as they get bigger, taking them to different things is pretty awesome too.

If you have never been to the great city of Chicago, make sure you add a trip to your bucket list.  We went to Daley Plaza where the infamous Picasso is located.  You know the one...it's a lady, it's a duck, it's an extraterrestrial that gave Picasso some space drugs...it's in "The Blues Brothers" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".  Every year they set up the German Christmas Village and have proprietors sell their authentic wares from Europe.  You can find hand carved Austrian cuckoo clocks, wooden shoes, German hard candies, traditional wooden toys, gut busting bratwurst (yum), fresh roasted almonds and the Biergarten, of course.  They set up around the Picasso sculpture and have a Santa for pictures with a more Norman Rockwell traditional look.  The man they had this year was a dead ringer; it was almost unsettling but awesome!  Kids were going bananas.  I am not much of a connoisseur of shortbread style cookies but ooo-me-oh-my there was a clutch of French nuns (wearing the traditional "flying nun" habits) that were selling fresh baked butter cookies.  Wow.  Those didn't make it home.  I also got some hard candies that remind me soo much of what my grandmother would bring home from her latest trip to Germany when Dori and I were children.

Picasso at Daley Plaza in Chicago

From there we walked on over to Ed Debevic's for some verbal abuse.  It was awesome.  They have pretty good food and the staff there is rude and obnoxious.  Not to an unbearable extreme but there is a whole lotta sass rolling around in there and it's set up like that, on purpose.  The staff has a lot of fun and I have never seen anyone leave from there insulted and pissed.  It is a great place to check out and it's just a mile over the Chicago River from the plaza.  Not to mention the plaza is about a mile from the train station so everything is well within walking distance.  If in-your-face sass isn't your cup of tea, you are only a hop, skip, and jump away from The House of Blues, Bar Louie's, Rainforest Cafe, The Hardrock, Harry Caray's Steak House, even the two story rock 'n' roll McDonald's.  There are soo many different places to choose from in a very small area, in city terms.

I have to say the only part of our trip that just plain ole sucked was the non-stop drizzle.  Just light enough you can ignore it but just wet enough that it drenches you.  My pant legs were soaked up my calf to just below my knee.  My knit hat was starting to droop from all of the weight of the rain but my head was dry!  Even with the shoddy weather, there were a ton of people at the plaza, giggling, taking pictures in front of the large Christmas tree, enjoying good eats and creating memories.  No one was rude or pushy, complete strangers warmly smiling and new friends being made at a spur of a moment. So although I no longer have a little person at a center of a living room wrapping paper tornado, I found myself unaware of how drenched and cold I was and how wonderful it felt to share that time with my loved ones.  We had a smashing time in Chicago and the train ride home, well, that's another story.  Let's just say I laughed so hard I came close to popping out my contact.  

We wish you many blessings of health and happiness during the holiday season and throughout the many years to come.

Dori & Karen