Christkindlmarkets – Chicago

Terry and I visited the Christkindlmarkets in Chicago many, many years ago.  Had it been 15 years ago?  Well, it was at least that long ago.  At that time it was freezing cold and vendor “tents” were set up all over the square.  There were so many of them.  That’s what I expected when I suggested a short trip to Chicago for their Christmas festivities but everything had changed.

We had talked about going to New York but decided to do this instead.  I'm thinking we should have gone to New York.  Janice had never been over Christmas and there's so much to see and do this time of year but that would have taken much longer so Chicago was the place.

Only Janice and I were going on this adventure.  Neither Terry nor Jerry had any desire to do so.  Either way it wouldn’t have mattered because Buck and Lily needed someone to stay and take care of them.  If we had it to do over again, I'm sure we would have preferred a beach somewhere.

We figured it’d be cold.  After all when we first started thinking about Chicago the weather forecast included some snow.  So, we both bought gloves, hats and other cold weather gear.  Thank goodness all we had to do was pack them and carry them around because he didn’t have much need for any of it.  The weather was beautiful (for winter in Chicago).  The sky was blue and even the sun was shining.  It could have been much, much worse. I'm thinking we spent more on our cold weather attire than the actual trip!

From the airport we grabbed the blue line into the city and walked the short distance to our hotel.  After that it was back to visit the Christkindlmarkets …… and, that's when I noticed it wasn't the same.   The little shops were no longer in the tented vendor spaces.  They were in wood structures.   The vendors were much fewer than we expected and the crowds were out in force.  What did we purchase?  Well, the souvenir cups were everywhere with hot spiced wine.  The wine was awful so after tossing that out we kept the cups.  That was our big and only purchase.

I’m thinking I walked Janice’s legs off.  We walked and walked and walked.  After all we were there and all we had really planned on was the Christkindlmarkets.  We did stop at the Skydeck and what used to be the Sears Tower.  We enjoyed the decorations and our cameras snapped often. 

Christmas decorations had popped up overnight at the airport.  They weren’t there when we arrived and we had plenty of time to check out the decorations and the shops before our flight.  Janice bought some of the ever-so-popular (and expensive) Garrett popcorn.  She wasn't overly impressed with it but Chicago folks love it.

It was a beautiful sunset as we boarded our flight that took us back to Arizona. 

The trip was short.  We flew up Friday and back on Saturday.  Nothing was as we expected but .... oh well!   We should have had a backup plan but we didn't.  Terry and Jerry had kept themselves pretty busy.  To begin with Jerry needed a little work done on his coach.  They tracked down a module for his RV lights in Phoenix and installed that. Then we had a new bumper for our RV delivered and they installed that too.  Plus, the leak was fixed but not by Camping World.  The boys also ate much better while we were gone than we did.   Janice and I split a pasta dish while they were out on the town having steak!  

That’s it and now to get ready for Christmas.  I have packages to get ready for mailing and others to organize for our trip north.  There's always a lot to do this time of year and I know I need to start getting myself organized or nothing is going to get done.  Thus, the two blogs together in about two days.  

‘Tis life on the road.