“When Can You Meet Santa Claus at the Shedd Aquarium?” by S.M. O’Connor

For the first time this year, visitors to the John G. Shedd Aquarium can meet Santa Claus at the Abbot Oceanarium’s Beluga Overlook. Kris Kringle will be accompanied by a professional photographer who will take digital photographs. The Santa meet-and-greet is an add-on to Shedd Admission at $19.95 per person ($14.95 for Members). Children two and younger (in other words, infants and toddlers) get in free with a paying adult. Digital images are included with the package. Click here to purchase tickets and here to become a Member. If you would like printed photographs, you can also purchase them at a fee of $5 per photo. With your purchase of a Santa at Shedd package add-on, you can also attend an exclusive presentation of Polar Express 4D, get reserved seating for an aquatic presentation, enjoy a 10% discount at the Shedd stores, and get $1 off a Freestyle Coca-Cola beverage with any purchase in the Bubble Net food court. The first available date was December 1^st and the next available date is today, Friday, December 6, 2019. Subsequently, your family can see Kris Kringle at the Shedd Aquarium on these dates in Advent: December 7^th, 8^th, 13^th, 14^th, 15^th, 20^th, 21^st, 22^nd, and 23^rd.

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SANTA AT SHEDD DATES FOR 2019 ADVENT

Which Weekend in Advent	Dates
First Weekend in Advent	Sunday, December 1, 2019
Second Weekend in Advent	Friday, December 6, 2019 Saturday, December 7, 2019 Sunday, December 8, 2019
Third Weekend in Advent	Friday, December 13, 2019 Saturday, December 14, 2019 Sunday, December 15, 2019
Fourth Weekend in Advent	Friday, December 20, 2019 Saturday, December 21, 2019 Sunday, December 22, 2019 Monday, December 23, 2019

Since September, I have written about similar events taking place this Advent at the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry down in the Chicago Park District’s Jackson Park in Hyde Park; the Lincoln Park Zoo up in the Chicago Park District’s Lincoln Park in Lincoln Park; the Brookfield Zoo in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois; and The Morton Arboretum in southwest suburban Lisle, Illinois. Note that the 2^nd Annual Breakfast with Santa at Lincoln Park Zoo is sold out.

The Shedd Aquarium is a Smithsonian Affiliate. It is located on the Museum Campus in the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park in downtown Chicago, along the scenic lakeshore, due east of the Chicago Park District’s Grant Park. Normally, the Shedd Aquarium is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the workweek (Mondays through Fridays) and from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekends (Saturdays and Sundays). Click here for updates on hours. The last ticket sale is forty-five minutes before closing.

The address is 1200 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605. The Website is https://www.sheddaquarium.org. The phone number is (312) 939-2438.

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The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.