Weekly Wrap Ups: Dec. 18th - 25th - A Walk in the Pink Park

Weekly Wrap Ups: Dec. 18th – 25th

December 27, 2017 in Chicago, Christmas, Food, Holiday, Snacks, USA

Hi everyone! A bit of a delayed wrap up here due to the holiday season but there was a ton of activities packed into this week worth sharing. First up, I rounded out the last Christkindlmarkt visit with a blogger meetup hosted by Jordin of West Loop Soul. Along with making a few new friends like Jackson, Miya and Lee, I also ran into Kendra and Megan who I’ve met before. With tasty brats and mugs of hot wine in hand, we took a few loops around the mart to look at ornaments and all the vendors as well as mingling with one another. It was so much fun getting to meet more Insta-friends!

We started getting cold pretty quick so our next adventure led us to the famed Walnut Room at Marshall Field’s…I mean, Macy’s 😉. Can you believe I’ve never been?? I had spiked eggnog for the first time and I’m obsessed. It tasted like French vanilla ice cream! Another perk was if you got a holiday drink, they gave you a free mug to take home too (and now they change every year like the Christkindlmarkt ones do)! I’m definitely going to start a collection!

Another I make sure not to miss is the Museum of Science and Industry’s Christmas Trees Around the World. My aunt does the lights for them so my family and I have gone the last few years to see what the theme is each year. In the past, it’s been anywhere from Disney to Charlie Brown as well as many others. This year, it was the 75th anniversary of the decorations so each tree had a little history about it along with the culture. They were all so beautiful and some of the ornaments even had little scenes inside them like the one below. I hadn’t been back to the museum in a while so I made sure to see all my favorite exhibits as well. I made a quick stop to the railroad model to see the little Christmas train pass by around the skyline and the mountains- fun fact, my great grandpa actually worked on this model and helped with the trains! Next up, I went to Yesterday’s Main Street – a cute little 1900’s set street complete with famous Chicago store fronts like the Berghoff and Marshall Field’s plus a movie theater that you can watch old Charlie Chaplin shorts inside!

The next exhibit is my absolute favorite exhibit probably ever: Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, a movie star’s dollhouse that all her famous friends helped contribute to. Each room has so many hidden references to fairy tale characters such as the Rock a Bye Baby cradle in the tree along with Cinderella’s coach outside the front entrance below. There’s King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table in the dining room and the oven that Hansel & Gretel pushed the witch into in the kitchen. There’s actually gold and diamonds and other fine jewels/materials in the furniture so definitely the most ornate dollhouse I’ve ever seen! Right before I left, I got to see the Rube Goldberg machine inside the cafeteria that’s set in the Swiss Alps – so cute and all the pieces were items that the creator found in junk yards.

If you’ve seen my photos on Instagram lately, you may recognize this next spot. After taking photos there a while back, I was able to actually eat there this time! It was really good – we got brisket, pulled pork sandwiches, sausage links, Frito pie, and multiple salads. It was probably the most amount of meat in one sitting I’ve ever had in my life! I, obviously, was not alone and my family had the pleasure of dining with me too and they also agreed that it hit the spot. Yum!

The last few here are all my Christmases with different sides of the family that I’ve been enjoying, near and far. I’ve sipped on holiday mimosas, snacked on charcuterie boards, and I can’t wait to use my brand SPANKING new camera!! For the rest of the year, I’ll be with all my best buddies, my cousins, who we see every year during this time. Happy holidays everyone and see you next year!!!