Christmas in Chicago...

Christmas 2009

Being away from your family on Christmas was harder than we thought it would be.  This is especially true since last Christmas Eve, we ALL spent the night together!  Knowing that Christmas would be our LAST in our house of 23 years, it was a GREAT idea and we had a ton of fun doing it.  Here is a picture of all 19 of us (including our butler.. Egor, last row on the right).


Chicagoan's are a lot like Salt Lakers when it comes to seeing Christmas lights, however, instead of going to see Temple Square, they head downtime.  They either go up and down the Magnificent Mile or State Street or both. Wanting to "experience" Christmas in Chicago, we decided to head downtime one evening after all our appointments.  We had seen some of the lower part of Michigan Ave with its lights, but thought we ought to check out the rest of downtown. They hold a celebration called "Christkindlmarket" at Daley's Plaza which is located on Dearborn and Washington. It's a German market that offers unique crafts, gifts and a variety of entertainment, as well as German food and drinks. 

Tribune Building

On the way down, I took some pictures of some of the buildings and their lights.  The Chicago Tribune building is the white skinny one in the picture at the right.

The Chicago River looks a little bit on the cold-side, but kind of cool with all the lights around it.

Chicago River

The walk down to Daley's Plaza is about a 1.5 mile one-way.  Since we were down that way, we tried to stop by and see one of the 1st Ward's prospective elders.  However, the doorman (lady) said it was a business, however, the business hadn't been there for some time.  We opted to give her the Church DVD and little cake we had for him.  She was very appreciative.

Main Macy's Store

As we headed down State Street, we stopped to take a picture of the decorations on Macy's downtown store (it used to be the Marshall Fields Store).  It was a pretty crowded night.  Many families come downtown to look at the lights and attend the Christkindlmarket.

Chicago Theater

Just down the street from Macy's is the Chicago Theater. This theater holds live performances like Bill Cosby and Glenn Beck. It's a neat old theater, we may just have to check it out sometime.


We decided to head into the Macy's store.  We had visited the Marshall Fields Store back in 1984 when we came through Chicago on our way back East to attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It's an amazing building.  Everything is done on such a LARGE scale.

Macy's Ceiling

Macy's Decorations

Macy's Tree

At the Christkindlmarket 

We finally made it down to Daley Plaza to check out the German market.  It was pretty crowded and we didn't really go in & out of shops, but rather just walked around.  They had street performers that we watched and just kind of soaked in the atmosphere.  Luckily, it wasn't that cold of a night, so walking around looking at all the booths was enjoyable.  If it wasn't so crowded, it might have been fun to have checked each one out.

Tree at German Market

On some of the corners, they even had puppet shows going on.  I videoed one of them for a brief time.  The kids watching them were really getting into it.

We stayed downtown for a couple of hours. Around 10pm we decided to head home.  By this time, we had put probably 3-4 miles on our feet so we decided to take the subway home.  We grabbed the Red Line on State Street and took it to Clark & Division which is just a couple of blocks from our apartment.

Thursday night, we drove around to many of the Prospective Elders (PE) we have visited and those that didn't have any family in town, we invited them to attend our Christmas Brunch.  Terry (the lady in the wheel chair with MS) and Allan, a 72 year-old PE both said they would come, as did a couple of the Sisters from the Single's Branch that didn't have any family in town.  Of course the full-time Elders (Buckway & Otto) will be there as well.

As we drove back home, we stopped at the Walgreens just down the street from us.  As I walked in, I had a lady give me a GREAT quote.  We seem to get that once in a while.  Usually, it's about our name tags.  When we are in stores, we frequently get asked where things are located, since they see our tags and think we must work there.  Anyway at the Walgreens that night, I had a lady provide me a classic, that will SURELY be a "journal entry."  I think she was probably several bricks less than a full load.  As I walked by her, she looked up and said, "I don't NEED a name tag, I KNOW who I am!"  Good point, can't argue with that.

Friday night we Skype'd/Face Timed some of our kids/grandkids before going to bed.  We woke up to a White Christmas!  We found out that it had been 13 years since the last one here in Chicago!  We figured we must have just brought the snow with us from SLC.  We spent the morning getting read for our Brunch.  Jenny and her family Skype'd us while they opened their presents, then they watched while we opened a gift from them.

The two single Sisters that came to our Brunch were Tamry Juntunen and Charity Beatrice.  Tamry is a Psychologist, while Charity is a Criminal Defense Lawyer. Now that is SOMETHING I'd like to see. She's about 

4' 10" and skinny as a rail.

Later in the day we talked to the kids for a brief time and saw some of the gifts they got for Christmas. Did I tell you it was difficult being away from our kids and grandkids on Christmas?  Because of technology, we were able to see them, but what we REALLY wanted to do was HUG them!  All of them.

Later that night, while the full-time Elders were still here, Yasna (the Bosnian investigator from our building) came up for a short visit.  We were just getting ready to watch some Church DVD's with the Elders when she came.  So we had her sit down and watch them with us.  We watched "Joy to the World," and then, I put in "Reflections of Christ."  Yasna has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ so she really enjoyed these DVD's.  She even told us of a miracle that had happened in her childhood. She saw the picture of Joseph Smith that we have on our wall and asked who that was.  Sister Beck said that it was Joseph Smith, the first prophet of our church. The Elders asked if she'd like to learn more about him in another visit to her apartment and she said, "yes."  I decided that while they were talking, I'd just put in the DVD on the restoration.  She seemed to be very interested in it.  Normally, she seems to lose focus easily, but she really paid attention to this DVD.  When were we done, she asked questions about our church and our meetings.  She was happy to know that women participated and spoke in church and that all the members donated their time without pay to serve in the church. She said that was the way it should be. It was a GREAT way to end Christmas.  She is coming up again tomorrow (New Year's Eve) for dinner, another discussion, and to have the Elder's give her a Serbian Book of Mormon.  We'll keep praying for her because she really needs the gospel in her life.  She has committed to attend church with us this Sunday.