Christmas

Every year starting in late October, the red Toys for Tots boxes start appearing in nearby businesses, institutions and restaurants in Bloomington-Normal. The 110 drop boxes remain fairly vacant until the holiday shopping season.

There are ample opportunities to get merry and bright in and around Bloomington-Normal next month. Here is our list of more than 40 options.

Human beings have marked the turning of the year with many different traditions over thousands of years. Some practices have fallen out of favor. Today, American society celebrates on New Year’s Eve, and not New Year's Day, though this was not always the case.

Christmas in America wasn't always the huge festive cultural movement we know today. The Puritans made the celebration of Christmas illegal. They thought such demonstrations were sacrilegious.

There are a lot of Santa look-alikes out there. But he wanted Bloomington-Normal to meet the real deal.

Following a restoration, the historic 14-foot Livingston Santas will be displayed in Bloomington and Normal after being in storage for nearly 30 years.

The beloved, blushing Santas that once adorned a downtown Bloomington department store have been in storage for more than a decade — and are scheduled to be back on the town for the 2024 holiday season.

Michael Holtz earned his local fame — or notoriety, depending — for an annual Christmas lights display that's done nothing but grow since the 1990s.

A local Facebook group created a map with more that 40 suggestions for holiday light viewing in Bloomington-Normal. The map makes it easier than ever to create a DIY driving tour of some over-the-top displays.

Most people know about the letter a little girl wrote to the New York Sun newspaper in 1897 asking whether Santa Claus is real. It prompted the famous response, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." Bloomington-Normal children encountered their own slightly more intrepid version of that idea a couple decades later.