Thanksgiving in the city

I may be completely wrong here in my theory but I love Thanksgiving week in Chicago! I would deign to say that most of the people that live in our general neighborhood and the surrounding areas are similar to us (i.e. mid-twenties, young professionals, no kids, parents are either in the suburbs or somewhere else). What does that have to do with anything? Well, most of them leave! In our closer group of friends, the vast majority are going to be out of town for the week/weekend. And it sure seems like everyone else does the same thing! The city clears out! Traffic is next to nothing. Obviously, this theory does not apply to downtown, like Michigan Ave, which will be mad packed all weekend. But here, a couple of miles north, our neighborhood is at it's calmest all year. I LOVE IT!

Just to illustrate my point, there are only a couple of Targets in our near vicinity. And there is only one Wal-Mart in the city limits and it's in the mad ghetto so Target is usually insanely packed. On weekends, it's a nightmare to find parking (and I'm not even going to talk about Costco, that's a whole 'nother ball game of insanity) and the place is a sea of red carts and crazy shoppers. And that is YEAR ROUND every weekend. Frankly, I can't remember a random Monday afternoon or Thursday evening that the place isn't obscenely packed. So last year, my dad was in town and after our Thanksgiving meal, he decided that I needed a few kitchen items (mainly knifes so we don't kill ourselves carving meat this year) so we headed over to Target. On Black Friday. How was it? Quite manageable if you ask me. I didn't even realize it was Black Friday that's how emptied out the city gets! When you have the kind of lifestyle that we live and being in a huge crowd of people is the norm, it's so nice to have some respite from that. I have a feeling that we'll probably be celebrating Thanksgiving here in Chicago for as long as we live here. Plus, at least last year, it was really the last nice weekend we had before Old Man Winter came to attempt to kill us.

So, I'm going to enjoy the next couple of days as every time I walk down the street, I'll see other young city dwellers, lugging their suitcases and hailing cabs to the airport. Happy travels everyone and do I have any takers to hit up the Target sale at 5 a.m. on Friday? No? Ok.






(and I'm sorry for the utter lack of pictures lately. Dang this place is boring! I'm just totally over my crappy camera and hoping for a new one for the b-day (SO SOON!) or Christmas)