In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” Father Christmas gives gifts to three of the Pevensie children: a sword and shield for Peter; a bow, arrows and an ivory horn for Susan; and a dagger and fire-flower cordial for Lucy. In “A Christmas Carol,” the gift is a prize turkey from a reformed Scrooge. And in “The Nutcracker,” Clara receives a nutcracker doll from her Uncle Drosselmeyer at the family’s Christmas Eve party, one that later comes to life.
In the next few weeks, Americans will attempt to capture the magic of the season with the purchase of the perfect gift. We are, according to the National Retail Federation, expected to spend an average of nearly $650 each on gifts this holiday season. About 197 million Americans shopped over the long Black Friday weekend, the federation said Tuesday.
That’s despite some concern that shoppers, weary of high prices, are looking to tighten their belts. “The consumer has just kept chugging along,” said Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who spoke to the Tribune about his holiday shopping habits. “They’ve been predicting the demise of the American consumer for multiple years.”
The Tribune asked Goolsbee and other notable Chicagoans how they shop for the holidays and what gifts they have treasured receiving. Here’s what they said.
Maria Pappas, Cook County treasurer
Pappas, who has served as Cook County treasurer since 1998, usually finishes her holiday shopping in June. “I can smell a sale,” she said.
Pappas spends the holidays in Kalavryta, Greece, the village her husband’s family is from. She gives small gifts to people she knows, she said, including the priest’s wife and the woman who makes her coffee.
“There’s a little girl in the village who’s 10 years old, and she’s a goat herder,” Pappas said. “And when I was there, she came and sat next to me and said, ‘What’s it like to be on an airplane?’ Because she’s never been on an airplane. So every time I go, she gets an entire suitcase of stuff.”
Also receiving gifts from Pappas this year: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, to whom Pappas gave one of her own jackets. (Pappas is known for collecting eclectic jackets that she features in her annual jacket calendar.) Also, Romanian monks she befriended while on a trip to discuss the country’s property tax system with officials there. “The monk in Bucharest wanted a pair of Cole Haans. So I bought the Cole Haans on sale,” she said.
Pappas’ gift-giving advice: “It’s not the expense; it’s the thought,” she said. “Everybody at Starbucks — I don’t know if you realize it — in the winter, because the doors keep opening, they all wear hats. So I’m going to give everybody a hat.”
Where Pappas shops: All over, with an eye on a good deal. Pappas likes the clearance section at Ross Dress for Less and T.J. Maxx. “I bought 20 Chicago T-shirts that were 40 bucks apiece at a closeout at River Forest Mall. And I got them for $3 apiece because the store was closing,” she said.
What she’s getting for her husband: “I cook every day for his sorry a−−,” she said.
Whether she gives out her jacket calendars for Christmas: Pappas, whose calendar — not printed at government expense, each calendar notes — is a hot item among the Chicago press corps and other local wonks, does give them out as holiday gifts.
“Everybody in the hotel in Athens where I stay … will get a calendar. They might get a pair of socks,” she said. “When I start giving out these Maria Pappas calendars in Greece, they go crazy.”
Jeraldine and Dylan Mendoza-Gutierrez, dancers, Joffrey Ballet
The demands of “The Nutcracker” season mean the Mendoza-Gutierrezes, who will dance together in the Arabian divertissement and the Grand Pas de Deux this year, have only been able to celebrate Christmas back home in California twice in more than a dozen years, once during the COVID-19 pandemic and once when a guest appearance put them at Dylan’s parents’ house on Christmas Eve.
How they find time to shop during “Nutcracker” season: “It can be difficult for each other, because we’re together all the time,” Dylan said. Sometimes he gets gifts for Jeraldine shipped to the Joffrey, where he’ll hide them in his locker until Christmas.
How they celebrate Christmas: The dancers typically celebrate a belated holiday with their families back home. Jeraldine will sometimes shop online and have gifts sent back to California so her family can open them on the holiday. “I’ll have my siblings wrap my parents’ gifts and vice versa,” she said.
A favorite gift: One year Jeraldine bought Dylan music production software. “I used to make hip-hop beats,” he said. “She bought me, basically, a professional set-up to do it with. And so I ended up picking that up again, and I also even got my music commissioned by choreographers.”
Do multiple performances of a holiday production take the magic out of the season? “I feel like it’s a popular answer to be like, ‘Aw, I get so tired of ‘Nutcracker,’” Dylan said. But dancers take pride in being part of the holiday season, he said.
Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Goolsbee, a former top economic adviser in the Obama administration, became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago last year. This year, he’s a non-voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which drives monetary policy in the U.S. by deciding whether or not to cut or raise interest rates.
He spends the holidays in Abilene, Texas, where his mother lives.
The best Christmas present he’s given: A framed collection of movie tickets from films he’d seen with his now wife Robin, given to her for Christmas days after he proposed in 1996. The first movie they saw together was Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.”
Where to shop for gifts in Chicago: Museum gift shops, including at the University of Chicago’s Institute For the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, both in Hyde Park, where he lives.
Why we’re seeing mixed forecasts from retailers this holiday season despite inflation well below 3%: “Inflation’s lower, but the price level’s still high, so to the extent that people are price sensitive, that’s one,” he said.
Last year, Goolsbee noted, similar predictions for sluggish growth didn’t fully pan out.
“When we went into Christmas season ’22, you remember that was when we had the headline ‘100% of economists anticipate recession in ’23,’” he said. “And the main thing they got wrong was they were forecasting consumer spending would not be sustainable.”
What’s on his Christmas list: 2% inflation and a renewable membership to the Illinois Mycological Association, to which he belongs.
Dominique Leach, chef
Leach, owner of Lexington Betty Smokehouse in Pullman, won the Food Network’s “BBQ Brawl” during Season 4 and was a contestant on “Chopped.” Lexington Betty is busy with catering orders for Christmas Eve, but the restaurant is closed Christmas Day, when Leach will be celebrating with her family in Chicago. She came up working in restaurants, including the Four Seasons, where working holidays was the norm.
Whether she likes when people get her cooking-related gifts: “I don’t like it at all,” she said. “My kitchen is exactly how I like it.”
A non-chef, she said, might think a garlic chopper would make a good gift for a professional cook. “I’d much rather just chop my garlic with a knife,” she said.
Best gift she’s received: A custom chain from her wife with handmade fork, whisk and chef’s hat charms.
What she’ll be getting for her nieces this year: Perhaps matching coats. “One of them’s 12, and the other one’s very opinionated,” Leach said. (Her opinionated niece is 9.)
Rebecca Makkai, author
Makkai, author of “The Great Believers” and “I Have Some Questions for You,” is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist . Like many novelists, she’s drowning in books — advance copies and newly published works — that are sent to her home. “Everyone knows better,” she said, than to try to give her a book as a gift.
There are exceptions to the rule: “My husband last year got me a history of Budapest, which is where my family is and is from,” she said. “So that was perfect. No one’s going to send me that in the mail, and it wasn’t even brand new.”
Where to shop for gifts in Chicago: Independent bookstores for books, but also for well-curated selections of non-literary gifts. “I end up in a lot of indie bookstores for events,” she said. “I end up buying all the other stuff that isn’t books. So I’ll buy my wrapping paper or jewelry.”
Of particular note: Exile in Bookville in the Loop for its LP collection and Volumes Bookcafe in Wicker Park for its gift section, particularly puzzles.
How not to give someone a book they’ve already read: Go to an independent bookstore and describe your gift recipient to the booksellers — tell them your brother likes sports, or that he used to live in Germany.
“That is going to make the bookseller think of a couple of novels that are maybe a little bit lesser known, she said. “And you can always get the gift receipt and hope for the best.”
José Ochoa, president and CEO, National Museum of Mexican Art
Ochoa shops for gifts on 18th Street and from artists in Mexico, in person when he visits and online. It can be risky to give art as gifts, he notes. One year, he gave his wife a piece commissioned by an alum of ChiArts, of which he was a founder. “We were so excited, my child and I,” he said. “She hated it. And so now it’s sitting in my office at the museum.”
“I wasn’t offended,” Ochoa said, of his wife’s take on the piece. “Because it’s art.”
A gift he’s excited to give this holiday season: A wood-carved owl, or alebrije, for his teenager who loves the folk art form, by Oaxacan artist Mario Castellanos, whose studio the family visited this year.
Many collectors of Mexican art are older and white, Ochoa said. He said he’s been thinking about how to encourage a love of collecting in the Mexican American community.
“As there is a growing number of younger professionals, first, second, third generation Mexican Americans who now have more disposable income, how do we teach, encourage them to collect?” he said.
A helpful gift he’s received: A digital tile to attach to important items because he frequently loses things such as his wallet and keys.
Where to shop in Chicago: The National Museum of Mexican Art’s gift shop, Colores Mexicanos on Michigan Avenue, the AngMir Boutique on 18th Street in Pilsen and directly from young Black and brown artists on Facebook.
Andre Russell, professional Santa
Russell, also known as Dreezy Claus, has worked as a professional Santa for a decade. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he has three or four appointments in a weekend, including meet and greets and holiday events . “There’s not that many Black Santas, so you can’t be everywhere” he said. “I could be anywhere from all over Chicago in one day, from the North Side to the South Side to the suburbs.”
How he spends Christmas: Working on a caravan with the group Mothers Against Senseless Killings, traveling throughout Chicago’s South and West sides handing out toys. He’ll exchange gifts with his own family that night or on the 26th.
How he shops for his own family: Russell likes to support Black-owned businesses. One favorite is Kissed By a Bee Organics for skin and hair care products. Christmas gifts, he said, don’t need to be ostentatious but should be thoughtful. That could mean a nice candle, or a customized journal for someone who likes to write.
On whether he feels pressure when gift-giving because he works as a Santa: “Not exactly, because I’m not magical enough to generate everything that they want.”
The best gift he’s received for Christmas: An air fryer from the parents of a child he was visiting as Santa. The child flipped the conversation on Russell, asking what he’d like for Christmas. Russell said he’d like an air fryer, and the mom later got in touch to send him one. “I was like, no one’s ever asked me what I wanted for Christmas,” Russell said.
