Mad scientist Mikus! |
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Wednesday, December 4, 2013
A night at the Museum of Science of Industry
For 72
years the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry has been celebrating the
holidays with Christmas Around the World and the Holidays of Light exhibit. Originally
a United Nations Day salute to the Allies during WWII, the annual exhibit has
grown to more than 50 trees decorated by volunteers from Chicago’s ethnic
communities. Choral groups perform during the week, and weekends bring ethnic
song and dance performances by many of the ethnic groups that decorate the
trees.
Latvians
have been joining in for years, possibly 40-50. I remember dutifully making
several trips every year, one to help decorate our tree with the traditional puzuri and cranberries, the second to
participate in our performance sharing traditional Latvian customs of the
holidays. Those of you who might have stood onstage with me (or watched from
the audience) for ~ten years might remember the catchy lines like “look,
there’s the log!” and “but we can dance!” The Latvians will take the stage this
year on Sunday, December 15th at 10:45 am for those of my readers in
the Chicagoland area; I urge you to stop in and say sveiks to the kids from Krišjāņa Barona Latviešu Skola giving up their Saturday morning to share a bit of
Latvian culture with the world.
This
year while in Chicago for Thanksgiving I happened to have an “in” with the head decorator of the Latvian tree,
and so was invited to the Christmas Around the World annual Holidays of Light
gala. The sight of the 45 foot Grand Tree in the center of the rotunda greeted
us as we came up the escalator, and it was hard to miss this year’s theme –
Disney.
We got
a sneak peak at the new temporary exhibit “Treasures of the Walt Disney
Archives, presented by D23: The Official Disney Fan Club”, which celebrates the
innovation of Walt Disney’s legacy with more than 300 artifacts from 90 years
of Disney. We wandered through looking at the various movie paraphernalia and
clips playing, and Lauris tried his hand at drawing Mickey Mouse at the
end of the exhibit. Or should I say Mickey Squirrel? “I don’t want to draw a
mouse, I want to draw a squirrel.”
Dinner
was delicious, but the real attraction was seeing the exhibits after hours. I’m
not sure the boys knew where to look first; between the thousands of twinkling
lights in all the trees, the planes and trains in the transportation exhibit,
the tsunami and hot air balloons in the weather exhibit and all the other
exciting things to look at, their mouths were permanently open in awe.
A
couple hours and several Minnie Mouse cupcakes later (seriously, who had the
idea to use black frosting – our entire group ended up with black lips and tongues…
dark chocolate would have done the job just fine) we had done the rounds of the
majority of trees and open exhibits. I wish the miniature trains had been
running as both boys are big train fans, but Lauris is still talking about all
the wonders he saw at the “Christmas tree museum.” Thanks to my mother for
taking us with, and good luck to the kids taking the stage December 15th!
* The
exhibit runs through January 5, 2014, and is included in the cost of entry to
the museum. An additional ticket is required for the Disney exhibit. For a full
schedule of performances and more information on the exhibits, please visit the
Museum of Science and Industry’s exhibit overview webpage.
What a great experience. My boys would have been in complete awe - Christmas trees and Mickey Mouse. They don't need much more than that.
ReplyDeleteWhat wonderfully huge and beautiful Christmas trees! I remember visiting the museum in December once many years ago as a kid and seeing the Chicago Latvians dance, but I don't recall the decorations being THAT impressive. I think I need to plan in a December visit to Chicago next year to see that and the Christkindlmarkt!!
ReplyDeleteThe museum of science and industry was always my favorite field trip growing up.
ReplyDelete