The cool thing about living in a city is that there are SO MANY FUN WAYS to celebrate the holidays. From indoor ice skating rinks to outdoor ice skating rinks, indoor lights to see and outdoor lights to see, Christmas trees on every street corner, there’s SO FREAKING MUCH.

The annoying thing about living in a city is you really need to be on your shit because you can’t just spontaneously decide to go check out the lights. You have to COMMIT. Because when you try to sign on to purchase tickets for your family to go to the zoo and see the lights, they’ll shut you down. They’ll laugh at you. Tell you that you’re too freaking late.

Anyway, that’s what we tried to do on Sunday.

We wanted to go to the zoo on Sunday so I logged on around 3pm to get us tickets. And, nope. SOLD. OUT.

It’s fine.

Ishaan doesn’t give a crap about where we go or what we do.

I could wave my cell phone flashlight around a dark room for 3 hours and he’d have the time of his life.

I think, selfishly, I want to do the fun Christmas activities. For myself. So, before going to sleep on Sunday night, I committed to going to Christkindlmarket on Washington Street the next day. It’s an open-air holiday market that features vendors from all around the world. Hand-crafted ornaments, stuffed pretzels, potato pancakes, Christmas music! A FREAKING DELIGHT.

We got there 20 minutes before it opened and, thankfully, it wasn’t too cold out so we didn’t mind waiting.

I thought that with it being Monday, it’d be less crowded. And maybe it was in comparison. But, still! So many people! We got some potato pancakes (half of which were fed to the birds), an elephant ornament (bought from the Indian vendors because duh), and danced to some Christmas music before heading out.

We were there for only half an hour. But I got my fill.

Then, we walked along the river for a bit.

It’s cold here, but when the sun is out and beating down on you, it’s the best feeling ever. So, both of us walked the long route home, soaking up the sun as best as we could.

I’ve got quite a bit of work on my plate this week since we’re trying to close out some evals before the holidays. But, with the weather looking so good, I’m determined to get outside and do more fun holiday things! Maybe we’ll try the zoo again tomorrow. If it’s sold out, we’ll probably walk around the Navy Pier again to see the lights.

Hope you are all getting in the holiday spirit! Whatever that looks like for you!

Question of the Day:

What’s your favorite thing about the holiday season?