Why I Oughta...

Every time we've gone to the Parks, I've always worn the same thing on my head:  A Late Show hat.  Earlier this year, I upgraded to this old-school-cool original Disney World logo hat.  I've put it through it's paces a few times already, but it is now time to put it into short-term storage until we check out the place 'Walt built' when it is all dressed up for it's 60th next year.

Well, well, well.  Look what arrived in the mail this week:  the 2015 Christmas catalog from the fine folks up at Duluth Trading.  With the King Arthur catalog already in our house, with this, I can *now* build out my full Christmas "want" list. I mean...who isn't all over henleys and fire house pants from Santa Claus this year, amirite?!?

For the second year in a row, we packed up the kids and took them out to see what is called the "Canyon Trail Cemetery" in a neighborhood in Carol Stream a few days before Halloween. Here's the post from our visit last year . With The Babe and The Bird getting a bit older and more *aware* of things, they started to get a little freaked out by some of the things that jump out!   We picked up a couple of 'kids temp' hot chocolates and watched Hocus Pocus in the van on our way there.  It was a great way to lead up to the big day on Halloween. If you don't know about the Canyon Trail Cemetery, you can check them out here on their Facebook page .  It is a really impressive display put together by a family.  All they ask is for canned food donations for the local food pantry!

Gasp!  Disney artwork has official breached the front door of our house*.  Yep...that right there is a print featuring a couple of DisNerds enjoying the show at the Enchanted Tiki Room while slurping in a Dole Whip.  Seemed too perfect of a fit for us to pass up, right?  This feels a little bit like a move that can't be 'undone'.  Where will the Disney-creep stop in the house? From the little card on the back of the print we find out we're not alone in loving the Tiki Room along with a couple of Dole Whips.   You can find more stuff from Joey at his site here . *I say 'our house' here, but we all know that I mean Equation Boy/Man's house where we're staying until we figure out way out!

The folks over at the Home Depot continue their annual tradition of releasing a dated Home Depot building for your Christmas Village. Here's a post from 2011 that shows that year's version .  The date was in a different spot and they had Santa ringing a bell out front. This year's edition comes with a couple of people lining the sidewalk (one with the - of course - orange apron).  They're pricing it really well at $9.98 (same price as 4 years ago!), but it isn't the best quality made building.  Nevertheless, I'm thinking that getting a building for less than 10 bucks is going to make this thing find plenty of homes in villages around the country.  Mantleburg is more of a Menard's kind of town, though.  So, we'll be without Home Depot for a while.

Here's another of the 2015 Lemax Christmas Village buildings at Menards:  Jackson & Son Grocery store.   Like the Snowflake Theater that I posted last week , this one leaves a little bit in terms of finish and design.  It just kinda seems sloppy and the details aren't very fine in terms of how they're presented.  Too bad, but it seems that either Menards OR Lemax has let down their standards a bit.  This Jackson & Son Grocery store won't be finding a home in Mantleburg.  What will the residents do?  Hold out for a Whole Foods?  Who knows!?!?

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.

The Marshall Field's Macy's on State Street has jumped on their traditional Christmas decorations with the trumpets installed on the top of the first floor windows.  It also appears that the first few windows down State Street have gone dark in preparation for their annual unveil later this month. I posted a photo about a year ago showing the windows here on the blog . I still get the warm-fuzzies when I think about this place and Christmas.  It played a large role in our family tradition starting from a very young age and we still make an annual visit to the Walnut Room with our kids and cousins. Right after the Macy's transition, this place took a hit in terms of experience and quality.  But, I have to hand it to the Macy's people....they've really tried to improve the place and make it feel 'special'.  The Walnut Room at Christmastime *should* be special.  And they're doing their best to ensure it *is* special for kids like mine who make their

As you can see from the photo above, we ended up with 346 individuals to our door on Halloween.  That includes 9 adults, 73 'kids we know' and 264 'kids we don't know'. That's up from last year's tally of 308  and sets the new record for Halloween. This year: 346 total. In 2014, we had 308 total . In 2013, we had 326 total . In 2012, we had 327 total. In 2011, we had 269 total . In 2010, we had 236 total . In 2009, we had 184 total . A few things to note: 1.  It rained a bit his year.  Wasn't as bad as last year when it rained the entire time we were out trick-or-treating.  But that still likely made it a bit harder to turn-out for trick-or-treating for some.   2.  However...this was a Saturday.  That's the first time trick-or-treating wasn't on a 'school night', so I'm thinking that accounted for the increased turnout. 3.  We were down the block from where we normally have been.  The '09-'14 totals we

I picked up this "Where The Wild Things Are" boxcar last week as a Christmas gift for one of my nephews.  I have a little tradition where I gift each of the boys a train car and begin to build their collection of cars starting at a very young age.  Based on my experience, there's just a handful of years to capture a boy's attention in electric trains - and even if you are successful, and you get the kids to like trains - their attention will eventually wane as they hit the teen years.  That was the story with me.  My dad tried SO HARD to get me to be into his vintage trains. I was...then I went away from them.  Now I'm back. So...one of the traditions here is to try to find a train car that 'means's something to each of the boys.  This one, is aimed at a special guy and will hopefully appeal to him (and his parents!) and build on his collection of cars.  At some point, he's going to need a locomotive, too! But, this car is an 'aquarium car

Peeking out the window of my office this week was a treat with the brilliant reds and oranges from the trees in Grant Park and Millenium Park.   It was less than a month ago that I posted this same view that heralded in the beginning of Autumn . You can see the other seasons that I've documented out this same view here from earlier this year starting with the gloomy early Spring with NFL DraftTown.