City Sidewalks dressed in holiday style

We found a little Christmas magic on Chicago’s regal Michigan Avenue this weekend, so we packaged it up and brought it home to share.

Because even when you’re huffing your way past idling shoppers, praying hard you won’t slip on the snow or get bonked on the head by the falling ice chunks cited on ubiquitous warning signs; even when you’re stressed out because a really long cab line inspired you to walk and now you’re about to be late for your mother’s dinner party; even when the headwind into which you’re sprinting causes your eyes to water and your mascara to run; even as you’re deciding whether to be mad at your husband because he said the restaurant you’re looking for was just over the river and, though you crossed the river seven slippery blocks ago, the restaurant is nowhere in sight…even then, you can find the Christmas Spirit on Chicago’s stately avenue.

Christmas twinkles from a million white lights that line the Magnificent Mile. It graciously bows in welcome from its thick green garland and bright velvet ribbons. It giggles, too, from the smooth oval of its ice rink.

We saw Christmas in the chubby-cheeked children with one mittened hand stretched overhead to clutch a hurrying grown-up, and in Macy’s timeless windows, with their bright holiday display.

Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney sang in our heads as we sprinted up Michigan Avenue toward our party, and casually strolled back to our hotel after it.  Take a walk down Michigan Avenue on a crisp December night and treat yourself to some holiday magic.