A Wonderful Day

Since seeing the Nutcracker last year we have been talking about catching another holiday show this year. It was a bit of trial and error to find a good show at a reasonable price

 (A Christmas Story: The Musical, $180 on the low end. No thank you.)

Danielle found a little theater doing a production of It's a Wonderful Life. We were in. 

This was our day "Chicago Christmas Spectacular" day. (We didn't really call it that, I just made that up)

First, bundle up! Wool hat, ear muffs, wool coat, sweater, leggings, knee high wool socks, boots, scarf, gloves: check, check, check, check.

Then we went to the ChristKindl Market. It was pretty spot on with the Christmas markets I have been to in Germany, except this one was CRAZY busy. There were pretty booths selling traditional Santa figurines, ornaments, food/drinks, and home made goods from Germany and other countries.

A booth selling some pretty ornaments

Some traditional live music

SO many people

a peek into a shop window

 Jake and I got a little overwhelmed by all the craziness and took a walk around the perimeter for a bit. In a quiet corner of the market we found a crepe stand.

mmmmmm, tasty.

After that we took in some of the Christmas decor around downtown.
I'm sure other cities do to, but Chicago does Christmas pretty big. Every building and shop screams "Holiday", "Christmas", "Winter" at you as you walk past.

Planters outside an office building

Christmas trees and presents on the Wrigley Building

Planters on Michigan Avenue. They always have something pretty and creative all year round.

The water tower in Lego form!

Christmas tree at John Hancock building.

Us ladies all bundled up.

After a quick and snug cab ride, we went to dinner and then to the show.

I selfishly took a bucket seat, sorry boys and Danielle.

The show was so much fun! It was at a little theater in Lincoln Park called Victory Gardens on their Biograph stage. They performed It's a Wonderful Life as a live radio show set in the 1940's. They treated us like a live audience at their regular taping. They started the show by having us join in on some caroling (fun!).
The actors did a great job, all of them did multiple voices/characters. The sound effects guy was really awesome. He was always on cue, and since the show was set in the '40s, nothing was computer generated. During the "commercial breaks" they read shout out cards written by audience members before the show started. There were a lot of birthdays and anniversaries, awww. After the show the cast met us in the lobby holding trays of milk and cookies. It was just pure and sweet old-fashioned christmas  quaint. (Does that sentence make sense to you? I'm gonna go with it.) If you are looking to catch a Christmas show in chicago, go see It's a Wonderful life live at the Biograph (and invite me).

Jake's highlight of the day:
While sitting waiting for the show to start, Jake spotted a familiar face.
"Hey, it is one of the actors from Murder for Two!"
"Oh, yeah! Your right! Good eye."
"Talk to him."
"No, you do it." "You are closer." "What do I say?"
"Just say you saw the show and that he did a good job."
So I did that "Hi, I just wanted to say we all saw you in Murder for Two and loved it. You did a great job." Danielle and Brenda turned and said something similar. Jake talked about this for the rest of the night and into the next day.
After the show he tried to talk me into getting a picture with him for the sake of "your blog", but he really just wanted a picture of him. I refused, I had already talked to the guy for him and asking to take pictures with strangers is embarrassing (and I know embarrassing)!

Jake, said in dramatic tone, "Who would ever think we would ever see that guy again in our lives and we see him in the audience at another play!"

Merry Christmas!

In an unrelated note: Six followers! Thanks Mom! This blog is going places.