Chicago, IL

Santa Claus is a very busy man this time of year, but if you want to make sure that he has you on his good list and will be bringing you what you want this Christmas, you may want to steal about of his time.

There are lots of opportunities throughout the city to visit with Santa and his helpers. While visiting Santa in a shopping mall, at Daley Plaza, or at a department store makes for a pretty run-of-the-mill Santa visit, there are some more elaborate ways you can meet with Santa, which makes the season a bit more fun.

One of the oddest ones that I found was a local suburb, Elk Grove Village, actually had a swim with Santa event. It makes me wonder, what exactly Santa wears while swimming? Does he take off his hat? Wear red swim trunks? Or will he just be hanging out while the kids swim?

Swim with Santa
December 16th, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Pavilion Aquatic Center
Elk Grove Village
$7 resident / $10 non-resident (pre-registration required)

Odyssey Cruise brunch with Santa
Three hour event featuring a two hour cruise
December 16th, 11:00 a.m. board time
Shoves off from Navy Pier
$52.90 per adult; $15 per child age 3-11*

Ride the CTA with Santa
Santa and his elves ride specific el trains throughout the holiday season and hand out candy canes.
They ride the trains, a different route depending on the day, from 1:00 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends and 3:00 p.m.- 6:00 p.m. on certain weekdays. Here are the dates for the remainder of the season:
* December 16 — Brown and Orange Lines
* December 17 — Brown and Orange Lines
* December 18 — Orange Line
* December 20 — Yellow Line
* December 21 — Purple Line Express
* December 22 — Red Line
For more information, visit the CTA website.

There you have it! Three unusual ways to spend some time with Santa this holiday season. Hopefully you can talk him into bringing you a Nintendo Wii.

This post is part of the 12 days of Chicago series, which brings you 12 fun and interesting things that you can do for the holidays in Chicago. In conjunction with the series, this blog is sponsoring a holiday contest, which you can read about here.

Chicago, Christmas, Santa Claus, Swim with Santa, Odyssey Cruise, Navy Pier

In the near future, various parts of Chicago could be brought to you by various sponsors. Mayor Daley has spent $285,000 to hire a consulting firm to determine what options are available to the city for naming rights on the el, Navy Pier, and other important parts of city life.

You would think that a consulting firm might suggest that spending $285,000 on a project like that is rather silly, but I suppose then they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

As a purist, I would hate to see the city taken over by corporate sponsorships, more so that it already is at least. Isn’t it bad enough that they are advertisements on the buses, on the trains, at the bus stop, at the train stops, on the tops of taxi cabs and on random signage throughout the city? Do we really need to rename things, like “The CTA brought to you by Target”?

This is all just part of a larger picture of this country being saturated with commercials. Remember when the Rose Bowl was just the Rose Bowl and not “The XXY Company Rose Bowl brought to you by ABC company”? Remember when a timeout in a basketball was just a timeout and not “a timeout by GGG company which reminds you to take a timeout and shop with them…” Those were the good old days, I guess, and now we should brace ourselves for a further influx of advertisements.

Any ideas that the outside firm comes up with must maintain “the integrity of the city of Chicago’s brand image.” The plans must pass the scrutiny of “an advisory group of civic leaders.” I have a feeling, though, that the group of “civic leaders” will be a bunch of Daley cronies who are ready to rubber stamp anything with big dollar signs on it.

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Chicago, Mayor Daley, corporate sponsorship

Just like last time, State lawmakers gave the Chicago Transit Autority (CTA) enough stopgap money to avoid the service cuts and layoffs called the “Doomsday” plan just in the nick of time. This time, the cuts were scheduled to take place this Sunday.

The CTA announced this afternoon that they received $27 million from the governor and State lawmakers and will not have to make the planned cuts this weekend.

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CTA, Chicago, Illinois, transit funding

The “doomsday” plan threatened by the Chicago Transit Authority over the past few weeks may not come into fruition after all. On Wednesday, Governor Blagojevich offered a $24 million bailout to the CTA’s parent organization, the Regional Transportation Authority.

With the State budget not allowing any additional funding for the Chicago transit, the CTA had threatened lay-offs, fare increases, and drastic route cuts starting this Sunday.

The $24 million, however, would only provide temporary relief to allow time for the State to come up with a funding plan. It would ensure that there would be no fare increases or route cuts until November 4th.

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CTA, RTA, chicago transit