Why I Oughta...

Here's another building from Lemax that Menard's is carrying as part of their 2015 Christmas Village set.   Unlike the Snowflake Theatre , this building wasn't displayed on the top shelf so I couldn't tell if it suffered from the same quality issues, but based on the photo on the front of the box, it appears that this is a click up - in terms of product - from some of the others this year.  It has a clear window in the front left that shows the cobbler working in it and it has a nice hanging sign that sticks out from the front above on the left side.  That's a nice touch.  This one was on sale for $31.99, so that also explains the quality improvement.   Alas, the kids shoes in Mantleburg are going to have to continue to deteriorate because the Village Board has decided to not approve the application from the Cobbler to open up shop in Mantleburg.  Maybe another year, Mr. Cobbler.  Maybe another year.

 Here's the annual photo of the kids (in this case...The King of the Ball Tossers) in front of the Menard's Christmas Village set up.  I posted last weekend a photo of one of the buildings ( the Snowflake Theater ) and I'll be posting more shortly.  We went to the Melrose Park store (the one that has the shopping cart escalator and piano player!). We were there to see if there were any worthy additions to Mantleburg.  The Village Board has been picky lately as the last annexation to the Village of Mantleburg happened back in 2012 when they brought in a new Tavern .  Will 2015 be the year that the Board loosens up their requirements? Here's a post from 2011 that shows The Bird doing the EXACT SAME THING . Ahh...traditions at their finest, aimrite?!?!

If you head down York Street, you'll now notice this massive scaffolding setup in front of (and down the alley of) the old Plass Appliance store on the west side of the street. You can check out what the plan is for the site here on the blog .  It is a terraced-looking building that appears to have retail on the first floor and condos(??) up on the upper floors.   The Plass building is two stories and based on the rendering this new structure is going to be three stories.  It isn't just York Street that will be impacted.  Check out what the 'alley' looks like going west towards Nu Crepes. I posted a few days ago about the Nu Crepes sign, but after hearing all the chatter about their sign-issues, I can't help but wonder if this construction is going to make things A LOT worse for them. But...on the good side, I'm wondering if the opening of the new parking deck will help them with foot traffic? And, they're going to save the Plass sign, right ?

This weekend, we went over to Wannemaker's for their annual Christmas season Open House with all three kids and Nat's folks.  This is the second year in a row we've gone and it was a totally lovely experience.  Last year, we got their early in the day and waited for a long time to get to meet Santa and pet his reindeer. This year, we arrived pretty late.  I think it went from 10 am to 3 pm.  We arrived about 230 pm and walked right in.  They switched things up this year.  Last year, it was meet Santa...and THEN...go meet his reindeer.  This year, they put the reindeer part first.  They were allowing groups in two at a time to pet each of the reindeer.  The girls got up close and person with one of them (in the photo above). After that, you went around to the Santa line.  There, they had some cute coloring pages for the kids set up with crayons.  Really great way to keep the kids occupied and give them something fun to do while other kids were meeting with the 'Big G

There's a BIG set of scaffolding up around the Plass Appliance building this week as it appears that it is about to turn into a giant construction site.  As part of that process, it appears that the much-maligned Nu Crepes signage issue has a solve of sorts:  They have this sandwich board sign up right on the sidewalk.  Will it last?  Who knows! If you're trying to figure out what is going on with the Plass store, check out this post that shows the rendering of the new structure .

This morning, I stopped by the windows of the State Street Marshall Field's Macy's to check out the Christmas windows.  They're going with a space/planets theme this year and they're REALLY cute.  Above is the Venus window - which is the second from the north window. Below is Mercury, which is the most northern window on State Street. Here's a photo from just last week  that shows the decorations going up on the buildings, but not the windows open.

8 days.  Not too shabby for how busy things have been around here. On the left is the D23 Calendar celebrating the 75th anniversary of Fantasia.  And on the right is an Illini tailgate on the University of Illinois Alumni calendar. It took eight days, too, in October . Here's the post showing when I turned over September (18 days late!). August was just the 10th . July was bad. The 21st . In June, I nailed it. Turned on June 1st . Here's the post from May with the calendars . Took me until the 12th. March's post - where I turned them on the 11th. February post introducing the concept . On the 17th.

We stopped at Menard's over the weekend and they had their Christmas Village set up that included some newish buildings from Lemax.  This one above - the Snowflake Theater - was on sale.  We didn't buy anything for Mantleburg.  If you look closely at this building, it seems to me that the quality of Lemax buildings has gone down hill a bit this season.  The painting is sloppy and the details are kinda soft.   There were a few other Lemax Christmas Village buildings that I'll post later that were 'better'.  It really is too bad.  This theater *could* have been really great.  In past years, they've had some mechanical, light-up structures like carousels.  They could have done a really neat light-up, animated marquee on a theater like this.  Missed opportunity, it seems.

Ah....the question as old as time... When, exactly, is it appropriate to put on Christmas music? To try to help solve the dilemma, I've put up a new project:   http://www.canilistentochristmasmusic.com/ . There, you'll discover the answer to the question:  " Can I listen to Christmas music ?"  Trust me...this is *the* official answer to whether it is socially acceptable to have holiday tunes playing on any given day. I'm working on some tweaks, so check in once in a while to make sure you're getting the right advice.

See that red and white striped awning above the top of the yellow cab?  That's the Christkindlmarket Market booths getting set up.   According to their site, they'll open for business on November 20th , so they have a few weeks to get things sorted out. For the past few years, we've made a stop at the Market and picked up a few things and *sometimes* met up with The Big Guy for a photo.  With the opening of the sister Market at Oak Brook Mall, the appeal of the city one has dropped a bit for me.  But...I'm guessing we'll still make time for a stroll through the packed walkways between the booths and try to find a piece of Polish pottery for Noonie.