Holiday Weekend in Chicago
 

Heading to Chicago for a weekend next month... Was wondering of 'holiday' things to do downtown? Last time we visited Macy's Walnut Room and also the outside ChrisKindal (sp?) Mart and indoor Winter Wonderland at Navy Pier. Will definitely visit the Mart again but am curious of any other special events/wonders to see this time around...!... Appreciate any and all tips :)

You've got a few of them...also check out the window displays at Macys. Back in the day, when it was Marshall Field's, the displays were a lot better. But they're still entertaining.

Go ice skating in Millennium Park if it's open.

Maybe see if you can find a CTA Holiday Train.

Quite a few activities were discussed in this thread.

Thanks Dave! And ninja138, I don't know how I missed that!!! Appreciate you linking :)

Anything special happen in the pedway areas on weekends, just wondering...

My guess is no. The pedway system is mainly to get between various buildings; it's not the kind of underground mall that other cities' underground passages are.

Nonetheless, areas of the pedway we visited last time were pretty impressive..~ I suppose it probably gets too crowded during the week for any displays/decorating, when we were there (on a Sunday) it was empty :)

Take a walk through Lincoln Park Zoo at night when the lights are on!

If you're going to be in Chicago on the 17th-24th, the Music Box theater has sing-a-long showings of "White Christmas." The Music Box is a vintage theater, located just north of downtown. And the showings have Santa Claus and a Christmas music show.

The Goodman Theater's A CHRISTMAS CAROL is a classic. Half-price tickets may be available at hottix.org.

http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season....aspx?prod=110

The sing-along is to the accompaniment of a theater organ. It's great fun. A page out of a 1950s script someplace. The theater's far from Downtown: On Southport Ave., North of Addison and South of Irving Park Rd. You can take the Brown Line "El" to the Southport stop and walk two or three blocks to the north from there. An easy commute.

Not sure where the op is staying or if it's mentioned in the other thread, but something so simple as an after dark walk from the river north to Oak Street on Michigan Avenue (and/or vice versa) is a beautiful site during the holidays. The city and most businesses do white lights exclusively. A ride in a hansom cab is another option.

Just wanted to post a follow-up to our Dec. trip :)

Due to lengthy train delays we changed some of our pre-planning but still had a whirlwind weekend with some Michigan Ave shopping, visiting Millenium Park (beautiful in winter and very impressed with city snow removal of all the downtown parks!), enjoyed holiday decorations not only in the pedway (believe it or not) but Macy's on State and a music-themed huge tree in their Walnut Room, quick cab ride in pouring rain by Navy Pier after enjoying hot wine at ChristKindlMart, freezing visit to Lincoln Park Zoo haha but lights were worth it and enjoyed seeing the building exhibits, especially the primate building where they were all settling down and fixing bedding for the night!! Couple of BIG drinks at the Hyatt Regency, also decorated nice inside and visit topped off before we left with some deserts at Grand Lux Cafe, lucky to get the room surrounded by windows and twinkling outside lights.

Certainly hope to go again in a December and do some of the other holiday festivities mentioned in this thread!

As our weekend there turned out to be the blizzard weekend <!>, we were glad to have been Amtrak riders and actually quite a few airline travellers ended up being train travellers too lol Lengthy delays going home as well but, hey, at least the train was running :)