Yes, I know Christmas is long past, but consider this tardy post an early entry for next year’s holiday season!  Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry is well-known for its annual holiday celebration – Christmas Around the World.  We visited for the first time this year to check out the decorated trees as well as the museum’s newest exhibit, “You! the experience.”  The final verdict?  I would definitely return for the Christmas display, if not for You!

The Museum of Science and Industry is located about ten minutes from downtown Chicago. We often ride the Southshore Railroad and exit at the museum stop. The museum is also accessible via Metra from downtown. If you drive, there is a nice attached parking garage available.  Current museum hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day except Sunday, when the facility opens at 11:00 a.m. 

Standard adult museum admission costs $15.00, which is a substantial increase from a few years ago.  Kids are $10.00.  The Christmas Around the World display is included with standard admission, but there are always several extra cost experiences.  During our recent visit these were The White House: A Look Inside ($5.00), U-505 Submarine optional on-board tour ($8.00), and Omnimax movies Wired to Win, The Human Body, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes.  Because of the museum’s large size, we rarely do the extra charge exhibits.  I will say that I saw Wired to Win in Louisville and it was fabulous. 

The Christmas Around the World display is dominated by a central giant tree flanked by dozens of trees dedicated to countries around the world.  We explored the trees in a counter-clockwise pattern.  It took about forty-five minutes to see them all, and we didn’t even read every word of the plaques detailing holiday customs in various countries.

Here are a few of the trees.  My absolute favorites were Greece (far left) and Japan (far right).  I’m not sure how “authentic” any of the trees are in terms of being what would actually be on display at the holidays in the listed countries.  They seem more like symbolic representations with iconography specific to these places.  In any event, they’re very pretty.

We had a very difficult time finding the tree for Poland, where my people are from.  Finally we reached it – it just happened to be the last one we came to!  Near the display, there is a little gift store set up where visitors can buy ornaments representative of their heritage.

After we finished admiring the trees, we headed over to check out You! the experience.  This newish exhibit is an “interactive” look at the human mind, body, and spirit.  Quite frankly, it seems a little redundant to me in that some of these themes are already touched on in the museum’s Genetics display. 

The You! gallery, while offering some interesting exhibits, suffers from many of the same problems as most displays of its type – long lines and frequent malfunctions of the interactive experiences.  We very much wanted to try a game where visitors can move a ball back and forth with their brain waves, but after waiting fifteen minutes behind a mother and son who had camped out there we gave up and moved on.  We attempted to play with a touch screen maze but found the table to be non-responsive to our touching.  I did like the simple display pictured to the bottom right which allowed guests to lift the weight gain associated with eating the pictured snacks each day for a year.  Not that it had much effect, in that I’m drinking a soda while writing this entry and will probably enjoy a candy bar shortly!

After fighting our way through the crowds at You! we stopped in to experience two of my favorite things at the Museum of Science and Industry – the Brain Food Court and Mold-A-Rama!  The museum’s food court is one of the best I’ve seen at this type of facility, offering a wide variety of tasty healthy and not-so-healthy foods.  My mom opted for the taco salad, while I had a tasty pretzel bread sandwich.  Christmas cookies were also available during our visit. 

As for Mold-A-Rama, The Museum of Science and Industry offers several different types.  This visit, I made myself a lovely grey wax U-505 submarine to add to my collection. 

We had a great day at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Although we don’t visit here as often as the Field Museum or Shedd Aquarium, we are going to make an effort to make the trip more frequently.  Perhaps we’ll go in March to see Science Storms, the soon-to-be-opened addition to the museum’s collection.

I’ll admit – I was one of the ones kicking and screaming about the recent transition of Chicago’s historic Marshall Field’s on State Street into a Macy’s store.  However, I’m pleased to say that Macy’s has kept many of the best features of this downtown institution.  The public spaces are still heavily decorated for the holidays, as shown below.  Even more importantly, visitors can still enjoy a delicious brunch, lunch, or dinner at the seventh floor Walnut Room.

The Walnut Room is lovely year round, and certainly more peaceful during the spring, summer, and fall.  However, it is most known for its massive Christmas trees, each year’s with a different theme.  Over the years we have eaten under  Pinocchio tree, a Martha Stewart tree, and a Swarovski crystal tree.  The tree can be viewed from a platform on the store’s top floor or from most points inside the Walnut Room.

This year’s tree is simple, with primarily silver ornaments.  Unlike in past years, the base is bare – no presents – with words projected from above.  I think the one nearest to us said “Peace.”  Here are a couple of photos:

  The dining room itself gets very crowded.  We made a last-minute decision to eat dinner here, and were shocked to find there was no wait at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday night.  I vividly remember spending several Saturday mornings during my childhood enduring three hour waits with a pager, so I would highly recommend an early weeknight dinner as an alternative to this scene.  If you do want to do the brunch, arrive early!

We were quite lucky and ended up sitting at that vacant table right next to the tree in the photo above.  It was a great seat, except for the mysteriously unaccompanied kids at the table next to us who kept bumping my mom’s chair.  I think they were just overly excited.  There is a sugar plum fairy of sorts who comes around and sprays glitter on the kids, and she was causing general hysteria among the little ones.   

The food at The Walnut Room is pretty darn delicious.  We eat here a couple of times each year and have never had a bad meal, but we definitely have some favorite items which we tend to order.

Mrs. Herring’s Chicken Pot Pie is The Walnut Room’s most famous and longstanding menu item.  With good reason – it’s fabulous!  The pastry is much more lighter and flakier than one usually finds in a meat pie, making it a fine choice for a nosh in the middle of a shopping marathon.   

While there are many tempting salads to choose from at The Walnut Room, my personal favorite menu item is the Peach Nest, pictured above.  This dish includes some of the finest chicken salad I’ve ever had, its flavor heightened by the bed of onion straws underneath.  It also comes with peaches, grapes, strawberries, and three different types of bread with a dollop of strawberry cream cheese.  I love this dish for brunch, lunch, or dinner.

Finally, no trip to this State Street establishment is complete without a piece of its signature dessert, Frango Mint Pie.  This is basically a very strongly flavored ice cream pie with a crumbly graham cracker crust.  It’s worth the ice cream headache it brings!

The Walnut Room tree went up shortly after Thanksgiving and should remain up until after New Year’s.  If you’ve never checked out this Chicago holiday favorite, make some time to pop in and enjoy the tree, the lights, and possibly a delicious meal. 

The Indianapolis Children’s Museum has always been amazing, and continues to invent and improve itself.  I personally consider this museum to be the biggest “must-see” attraction in our state for both adults and children.

While the museum is worth visiting year-round, it pumps up its offerings during late November and December.  This year’s “Jolly Days Winter Wonderland” celebration takes place daily (except for Christmas) between November 27, 2009 through January 10, 2009.  Despite having no kids in tow, we bundled up and made the drive to check out this holiday event.

The center piece of the Jolly Days activities is the “Yule Slide,” which is set up right in the middle of the museum atrium.  The line was short for the first half-hour after opening but seemed to hold constant at about fifteen minutes thereafter, so encourage your little one to bring his/her patience.  Adults can go down too although we felt strange doing it without any kiddos in tow.

From the atrium, we headed into the designated “Jolly Days” area, which is located in one of the special exhibit galleries on the second floor.  There are designated play areas for various ages, a tiny pond for “sock-skating,” an ice-fishing exhibit with velcro fish, a play kitchen (above, right) and a “stable” where children can groom fake reindeer.  This area is also home to Santa and a queuing area that leads to his home. 

While we are definitely “kids at heart,” this area was a bit much even for us.  Within an hour of museum opening time it was jam-packed with pushing, shoving, screaming, crying kids battling for space in the too-small exhibits. 

Fortunately, we fared better in the rest of the museum.  In fact, Jolly Days seems to absorb a lot of crowds, so the remaining areas of the museum were surprisingly empty for a Saturday morning.  We started by checking out Dinosphere, which was added to the museum around five years ago.  It has an actual working paleontology lab onsite and the scientist on duty was eager to answer our questions and let us touch a T-Rex leg fossil.  We also took advantage of the uncrowded craft area to create a couple of textured clay dino-heads.

We also stopped by three other major permanent exhibits: What If…, Take me There: Egypt, and The Power of Children.  What If… is one of our old favorite exhibits but, sadly, is currently the part of the museum which could most use a fresh coat of paint.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this exhibit is on someone’s list to be gutted, as several aspects of its displays (dinosaurs, Egyptian tomb) are dealt with elsewhere.

Take Me There: Egypt is promoted as the museum’s newest permanent exhibit, although I could swear some variation of it existed during my last visit a few years ago.  Be sure to take the “plane” into Egypt to maximize your immersion experience.  I think Egypt will be a huge hit with kids, as there are tons of opportunities for active play in model houses and markets.  Adults should be sure to catch the very interesting video featuring different Egyptian women and children discussing their views regarding wearing the traditional hijab.

The Power of Children is quite good, but very sad.  It follows the lives and stories of three children: Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges, and Ryan White.  Proceed with caution if taking young children.  I think the content of this gallery is very important, but parents must be prepared to explain concentration camps, AIDS, and racism which may be a lot for a five year old to handle in a single afternoon.

Finally, art lovers should not miss the very interesting Fireworks of Glass featuring artwork by Dale Chiluly.  Much of the sculpture is tucked away on the museum’s bottom floor, next to the Lilly Theater.

Overall, while the Indianapolis Children’s Museum’s Jolly Days celebration was not entirely a hit with our group of childless adults, the museum’s regular offerings were more than enough to keep us busy and happy for several hours.  If you haven’t been to this awesome museum, or if you haven’t been lately, I highly recommend making the trip.

Really, Frankenmuth is one big dose of Christmas spirit.  It’s also the subject of many Travel Channel specials and highway billboards, which combined led us to drive four hours each way to enjoy this “World’s Largest Christmas Store.” 

Don’t let the title mislead you – there’s a whole lot to do here besides just shop.  We watched a film called “The Wally Bronner Story,” admired the holiday decoration displays, had a quiet moment in the Silent Night Memorial Chapel, and enjoyed frosted Christmas cookies and hot chocolate – in October! 

Of course, the shopping itself can’t be beat.  Bronner’s offers ornaments, nutcrackers, Christmas dishes, holiday greeting cards, collectibles, stockings, advent calendars, snacks, trees, wreaths, and more.  I personally got a jump start on my holiday shopping by picking out ornaments for everyone in my family.  Many items can be personalized on the spot – and for free – by a Bronner’s artist.

Bronner’s is open year round.  From January through May, hours are Monday through Thursday and Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5:30 p.m.  The rest of the year, the facility remains open until 9:00 p.m. every day except Sunday.  Bronner’s is closed (perhaps ironically?) on Christmas day as well as on New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  The exterior light displays are left on until 11:00 p.m., however, so those arriving in town late can still enjoy part of the show.

You can read my full write-up from our visit here.  Some of my favorite photos from my trip are below.

OUTSIDE:

INSIDE:

To get a true idea of the size and scope of Bronner’s, you should check out the store map! 

Also, if you can’t make the trek to Michigan, many Bronner’s products are available online.  We bought a couple more ornaments after we returned home and were happy with the service we received.  I do think going to the store makes for a more special experience.