On our 8th Date of Christmas... 

The Holiday Flower show.

We have found our new favorite winter activity-- the Conservatory. It's 75 degrees and full of plants and flowers all year round. Who could ask for anything better? Well, when they have a room full of holiday flowers, that's what makes it even better! So when it was a crisp 25 degrees outside (feels like 10 with the windchill), we headed over to the Garfield Conservatory to see the flowers.

Our 2010 Christmas Photo--sorry no photo cards this year, folks.

 

This is Ryan's "Hunny, I love you, but its freezing, can we hurry and get inside?" look.

Isn't this beautiful? I love the red green and white.

 

Did you know there were so many different kinds of poinsettias?

 

Gotta love the warmth of that glorious Sun!

These were one of my favorites.

 

Christmas Cactus.

My main squeeze checking out the poinsettias.

We will definitely be back in January to admire the flowers and warm up inside the conservatory. I love that you are indoors, but feel like you are outside with all of the beautiful plants and flowers!! Think I could set up my home office in there? :)

 On Our 7th Date of Christmas... 

Holiness to the Lord, The House of the Lord.

What better way to Honor Christ at Christmas than to attend the temple? I love the spirit that I feel in the Temple, and it was such a great experience to go at Christmastime. To be reminded of Christ, and our purpose here on this earth.  I think this may be a new Merrill Christmas Tradition.

Unfortunately, it gets dark pretty early here, so no pictures from this date, but here are a few temple favorites.

The Chicago, IL Temple.

2 Years ago at the Salt Lake City Temple Square for the lights. Man, time flies by.

I love these words on the Temple. This is from the St. George Temple, on September 10, 2010. Our Wedding Day. 

St. George Temple.

On our 6th Date of Christmas...

Two words: Butch McGuire's.

Even the outside of the Pub is decorated!

Check out all those lights and ornaments, and etc!!

At breakfast. It was so cold that morning it took us a while to take our layers off!

Sorry, bad lighting. But check out the nutcrackers!

Ryan's favorite part-- ESPN Sports Center.

See the trains?!

Yes, that's TWO trains going around and around.

Thanks for a great Christmas Brunch, Butch! We'll be back next year.

We went out for Christmas Brunch at a local Christmas favorite in Chicago-- Butch McGuire's Pub. Yes, a pub for breakfast. The food was great, and the decor was even better. I had heard about how they decorate for Christmas, and I was so excited to see it live up to all my expectations. Trains running around the top of the store, lights hanging from the ceiling with ornaments, nutcrackers, etc, and Christmas songs playing over head. It was perfect! The icing on the cake though, was the flat screen TV's with ESPN sports center on so we could catch the pre-game report for the BYU Bowl Game. My husband was a happy man (and even happier when we watched BYU take a big W that afternoon).

On our 5th Date of Christmas... 

We went to the Zoo!!

The Lincoln Park Zoo goes all out for Christmas. I guess the animals like to be festive too :)  It was fun to see the penguins, the giraffes and of course see all of the lights. They also had an ice sculptor outside making zoo animals in the ice. It was so fun. I do have to say, it was also freezing cold. Of course we decided to go out on the night when it was 13 degrees, feels like 0 degrees outside. Yup, 0 degrees. Welcome to Christmas in Chicago.

Ice Sculptor busy at work.

Other animals he's done.

These animals were a lot closer than they look! It was cool to see them up close.

Ryan liked this guy's beak.

Just us & Mr. Penguin, here.

So many pretty lights.

Snow globe with Zoo animals-- Panda and a Reindeer.

Polar Bear, Giraffe, and Penguins!

That scarf keeps me sooo warm.

See how red my nose is??? its like Rudolph! It was SO COLD!

 On our 4th Date of Christmas...

Operation Santa Clause. 

Ryan and I went to the post office to mail presents to our families. We actually live by the downtown HUGE Post office, so I was excited to see some original Post Office pieces, and the place decorated for Christmas. I noticed when I walked to the service desk some table set up, with baskets labeled "7 children, 6 children, 5 children ... one boy, one girl". I was intrigued, so I walked over and found myself in the middle of the Chicago Letters to Santa Program.

Isn't this cool?

Just some of my packages I was sending.

Operation Santa Claus had its informal start during the 1920's when New York City postal employees pooled their own money to buy gifts for poor children whose letters to Santa ended up in the dead-letter box. As the number of letters grew, the public began to be involved in the effort and now there are chapters of Operation Santa Claus in many American cities and villages. Individuals, corporations and civic groups are encouraged to contact their local post office for letters or to write or call Operation Santa Claus in New York. This year in New York alone, the letters are expected to reach 750,000!

The Chicago Letters to Santa program began in the late 1960's under the direction of Postmaster Henry W. McGee. He encouraged postal employees to “adopt” children and families in need. As word spread, the program was opened up to the public. Many large companies come in and pick up hundreds of letters to distribute among their employees.

I remembered reading an article earlier this week about how the Post Office have received more letters than ever before to Santa, and they have fewer people answering the letters for Santa. I always love adopting a child for Christmas, so Ryan and I decided to choose a name. To my surprise, most of the letters were asking for Xbox 360, a Wii, iPod, Laptop computer, etc etc. Seriously, most of the letters were asking for these things. I found one letter, though, that was asking for clothes (A&F and Aeropostle)- she even drew pictures! So we decided to help this little girl. We couldn't make it to her stores of choice, but we made it over to American Eagle, which is hopefully a good enough substitute.

It was fun to shop for this sweet girl, and get in the Christmas spirit by thinking and doing something for others. Perhaps we will make this a Chicago Tradition!

I thought this guy was too cute. See the table in the background with the Letters to Santa?

On our 3rd Date of Christmas...
My true love gave to me SNOW SNOW SNOW & More Snow!


We woke up to side-ways snow this morning. Luckily we still made it to church and all throughout the meetings, I would look outside and see the snow just keep coming down. I was supposed to fly out to Utah this weekend for a work trip in Snowbird, but needless to say all flights in and out of Ohare were canceled. We stayed in and watched the snowfall all afternoon. I felt like were a snow globe getting shaken up. I didn't brave the storm to take photos from our apt, but I definitely took some pictures after church.

Our cute little schoolhouse where we go to church.

Somehow I talked my husband into braving the storm for a photo-op.

You know its bad when you can hardly see Sears (Willis) Tower!

So dark and gloomy.

I made homemade lasagna for dinner, and we snuggled up to watch an old Christmas Classic--  White Christmas. I was surprised that neither of us had seen it before, and I think it is one of my new favorites!! The snow finally started to taper off in the evening, and I am still hoping to make it to Utah tomorrow. We'll see what happens. Wish me luck!