It’s beginning to look a lot like…. well, you know.

So, my calendar keeps telling me that Christmas is this weekend. Yeah. THIS. WEEKEND. Really? There’s NO WAY that can be right! Right?

R-r-right?

*dazed and crazy-eyed stare*

I simply don’t see how Christmas can be here already. I swear it was just Halloween. I mean, I still have the callous on my finger from sewing our costumes in October, so it can’t be December already. It CAN’T. It just doesn’t add up. I refuse to believe it.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

And yet….

There are trees with twinkly lights in our dining room (yes, TREES—plural—just roll with it), a bulging pile of presents on our floor, stockings hung by our fireplace, and Christmas cards lurking in our mailbox every time I dare to peek inside. Christmas cards like this one….




Isn’t that AWESOME???? It was sent to us from the spectacular Vegetable Assassin and we all busted out in giggles when we saw it. Wednesday is already plotting evil plans to steal it for her sprawling Tim Burton collection, of course.

BUT NOT IF I STEAL IT FIRST!!!!

(Thank you, Veggie!)

Wednesday, Scope and I have been enjoying Christmas in Chicago, even though it is just a thousand shades of wrong that Christmas is here already. A couple of weekends ago, we went downtown to lap up all the in-your-face holiday-osity lurking there. We went to Macy’s….





….where we bought what we thought was chocolate fudge….




….and we were blissful. Until we opened it and realized it was mint.

Dammit.

Mint is Wednesday’s culinary nemesis. It even outranks the unbridled terror which is tomatoes on her list of Foods So Nasty They Prove God Does Not Exist, but only because mint can be a tricky little shape-shifting bugger. Sometimes you don’t even know mint is there until it’s too late! Diabolical is what it is. Wednesday loathes mint in all its many forms and disguises, of course—but especially deceptively delicious-looking chocolate-fudgy ones, which are just SOOOOOO unfair and wrong. So, curse you, Macy’s, for your inadequate fudge labels!

Mint: 1 Wednesday: 0

After Macy’s, we went to the Disney Store where we watched their unintentionally hilarious opening ceremony (I’ll let my hubba hubba hubby tell you that tale of stupidity HERE) and where I felt tall (for once!) inside the princess castle.




Yes, quite tall indeed.

Next, we crossed the street to the Christkindlmarket, which is like a little old fashioned Christmasy German village in the shadows of the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, where they were advertising free photos with Santa.

FREE?!

My inner penny-pinching cheapskate did cartwheels! So, we got in line to see Santa.




The line looks long in that picture, but it moved quickly and it was about a third as long as the line to see Santa inside Macy’s. We played 20 Questions while we waited. And we laughed at the butt-ugly tree the city put up on display.




(Really, Chicago? Really? That’s the best tree you could find?! Pitiful.)

The Santa setup was really cute and the picture turned out great….




….but, unfortunately, the resolution is really low. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to print a decent 4x6 of it whenever I get around to updating my old school non-digital photo albums.

*sniffle*

So, maybe sometimes a free price tag isn’t the best deal after all. Bummer. Then again….

After Santa we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo (which was also free!) and took care of phase one of a school biology project Wednesday had been assigned.




She had to find five animals which live outside in the zoo during the winter. We found sea lions….






….and a Siberian Tiger….






….and European White Storks….




….and an African Wild Dog….




….and an Amur Leopard….




….and a few others. Then the sun went down and and all the animals went to bed. Shhhhhhh….




And while the zoo inhabitants snoozed, we got to run amok and enjoy the Zoo Lights in the dark, which was a pretty impressive display….







But, best of all, at Zoo Lights Wednesday got a brownie which was NOT mint flavored and then—POOF!—all was right with the world again….




Mint: 1 Wednesday: 64 billion

© Coracabana