I am luckily enough to be able to spend Christmas with family in a place I truly love – my one and only Chicago.  The only drawback is that now we have to pack up everything but the kitchen sink and invade the homes of wonderfully gracious relatives in order to celebrate the holiday.  But how WONDERFUL it is to drive into the city along Lake Shore Drive and see the beautiful gleaming buildings that have so been missed.

It made my husband and I so happy to see that our daughter is still a city girl at heart – practically skipping along Clark Street, stopping to watch the street puppets, and loving the many block walk to dinner in the cold December air.  She also adored every second of Christmas Eve brunch next to the giant tree at the famous Walnut Room on the 7th floor of Field’s (it will always be Marshall Field’s to me) and thought the Disney Store was the best place on earth.

Sure there’s the food (that I ate waaaay too much of) but the hands down best part of this Christmas was the chance to see some wonderful friends and family, making it somehow feel like we had never left (although the $30 parking was a bit of a slap in the face).

It’s with a resolution to visit my beloved city much more in the coming year that I admit it was nice to come home and leave behind the street parking and my husband laughing at me as I tried to show off my (once amazing, now horrible) parallel parking skills.