‘Twas the Night Before by Cirque du Soleil at the Chicago Theatre


Since this is the second year in a row, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Liz and I have a new Christmas tradition. We take Makai and Konrad to dinner then to the holiday show at the Chicago Theatre. This year Kelly joined us for dinner at Remingtons.

On the walk from Remington’s to the Chicago Theater we passed by the Macy’s holiday windows on State Street.

We passed by a Salvation Army bell ringer and she let Makai and Konrad ring the bells for a minute.

The show we were seeing was ‘Twas the Night Before by Cirque du Soleil. I really wasn’t sure how Cirque was going to pull this off in the Chicago Theatre. I was also a little worried about our seats. Both turned out great. I loved the show. Makai basically sat there with his jaw on the floor for 2 hours. As soon as it ended he could not stop babbling about it. We had box tickets in the U section. It was off to the side, but we had a great view. And the seats were very spacious. Turned out great.

Liz and Konrad grabbed a ride home. Makai and I walked back to where we parked the car. On the way we passed Chicago’s bronze cow statue.

When we got to Michigan Avenue Makai spotted Chicago’s Christmas tree.

Makai asked to get a closer look, so we walked over and took a look. The tree is HUGE!

Chicago Mascots + Val Warner + School Kids

One day back in June I was walking by the Thompson Center and came across a whole bunch of Chicago sports team mascots and Valerie Warner and a bunch of school kids. I didn’t really know what was going on, so I just took some photos and figured it out later.

Turns out it was the Salvation Army‘s Hunger Campaign and they were collecting donations. But to make it fun they were having people text for certain mascots. Also, each mascot had a box so you could just put money in the mascot box. These are the mascots who were present:

Not too surprisingly, the Salvation Army is reporting that the White Sox mascot, Southpaw, won. While I was there, it sure looked like Sparky was winning. It’s who the kids liked best, but I guess the kids were not voting with their wallets. More importantly, the Salvation Army raised more than $500.

Along with the mascots, there was Val Warner, who I recognized immediately from WGN Morning News. She and Ryan Chiaverini are now doing Windy City Live in Oprah’s old time slot.