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!

On Our 2nd Date of Christmas...

After a week of being sick and indoors we decided we were well enough to head over to the downtown Macys to check out the story-book windows and indoor decorations. I was NOT disappointed! It was beautiful! I love the architecture of this Macys, and I especially love how big it it! We got lost a few times trying to find certain things...

Look at that ceiling!!

Christmas Trees everywhere.

After Macys we walked down State street and did a little Christmas shopping and window shopping. Then we turned the corner and saw the Daley Plaza's Chistmas Tree. I LOVE big Christmas Trees (although I do have to admit, I was hoping this one would be a little bit bigger) but it is surrounded by an awesome German Market, The Chicago Christkindle Market, so that made up for it. We joined the crowds and oo'd and ahh'd over the beautiful glass ornaments, intricate wood nativities, and everything else they had out on display. If our stomachs were back to 100% we definitely would have had a Brat, or a Feta and Spinach pretzel, but instead we just admired the nutcrackers, and dolls and clocks, and little villages. I love love ornaments and it was amazing to walk through and see so many beautiful ornaments on display. My feat of the night, however, was NOT buying an ornament from the German Market for myself. It was quite an accomplishment.

Gotta love these awesome life-size nutcrackers!

And these larger-than-life Nutcrackers.

I think my favorite part of the night, though, was walking by a church in the city and seeing this on display. A true reminder.

At this point we were starving, and the only place open was the food court in the Olgivy Transportation Center, so we loaded up on Popeyes Chicken and Taco Bell and headed home to watch a classic Chicago Christmas Movie.

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On our First Date of Christmas

my true love gave to me ...A beautiful Christmas Tree.

We went out in search of the perfect Christmas tree. We went back to our pumpkin lot and looked around there ... but didn't see anything that jumped out to us. In fact, we were in price shock (I should have known trees in the city were 2-3x the amount they were in Minnesota) so we headed over to Costco to check out the trees they had there. Unfortunately, the downtown Costco in Chicago wasn't selling trees!! Only the fresh wreaths. Bummer. So we decided to try Home Depot. While on our way, we were stuck in traffic and I saw another little tree lot, so we pulled over. We looked at lots of trees, and finally found one we liked. Lucky for us the salesman was this nice guy from Wisconsin and gave us a deal (the first time I have been successful at negotiating for a Christmas tree!) We got it home and immediately starting decorating.

Gotta Love the Christmas Tree "office" here in the lot.

The little city tree lot.

Tree on the Xterra.

Our only photo from that night. Not the best, our camera was dead, so its from my phone.

My cute husband putting the star on the tree. The Jazz might have been playing while we were decorating...

All finished! Updated photo to come soon with our new tree skirt!

Merry Christmas! Look for the rest of our 12 Dates of Christmas this month :)