Various activities held throughout the holiday season including light parade and lighting ceremony, entertainment, demonstrations and giveaways.

Featuring horse-drawn carriage rides, visits with Santa and entertainment. Check website for detailed schedule. Weekends from Nov. 10-Dec. 23, 2012.

The festival kicks off at 6 p.m. on Nov. 15 in Pere Marquette park. Featuring live music, fireworks and the ceremonial lighting of the downtown lights. The light festival features thousands of lights and holiday displays.

Visitors can walk inside the two-story silo and turn the crank of a silage machine, watching "corn plants" delivered to the top of the silo. Plus, learn about the history of silos and silage, build miniature silos with building blocks simulating wood, brick and metal and much more.

With small solar lights to guide their way, hikers, skiers and snowshoers can traverse the 1.3-mile fitness trail at Old School Forest Preserve in Libertyville or the 1.65-mile hilly section of the Millennium Trail adjacent to the winter Sports Area at Lakewood Forest Preserve in Wauconda. Starting Sunday, Nov. 4, the trails and adjacent parking lots will remain open until 9 .m. daily until March 9.

Play with toys and games from all around the world and meet their inventors, stage events, characters, Radio Disney, Top Trump Tournament, KenKen Tournament, Star Wars Breakfast, mascots and more. New in 2012, toy and game fashion show on Nov. 14.

Kick-off to the Christmas season and the annual Red Kettle campaign. Celebration includes musical performances by cast members of the Goodman Theatre's "A Christmas Carol" and the Salvation Army Brass Ensemble and culminates in the lighting of an 18-foot-tall Christmas tree.

See a toy so amazing, so unbelievable, it has the power to transform into anything you want it to be. Enter a world where imagination rules, and ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Build a snow fort, throw snowballs, dress up a snowman and ice skate - all inside.
The brand new "ice" rink has more space to skate in your socks.

A new traveling exhibit created by Children's Museum of Pittsburgh that links familiar childhood objects to a process of manufacturing that combines people, ideas and technology. Inspired by the factory tour segments from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the exhibit offers hands-on activities using real factory tools and machines to create objects including crayons, a baseball bat and a matchbox car, just to name a few.