This fair offers families, teachers, toy and game enthusiasts the chance to preview new toys and games, compete in tournaments, meet toy and game inventors and shop for the holidays. Also featuring live entertainment and roving characters. Includes giant-sized games, Settlers of Catan North American Catan Championship, Speed Stacks sport stacking demo and tournaments, meet the Moshi Monsters, Star Wars lunch (Sat.) and Pony Royale Princess Party (Sun.).

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

Lincolnwood Thanksgiving Turkey Trot and Drumstick Dash  | Lincolnwood

5K and 10K run, 5K walk and Drumstick Dash.

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

Santa visits on Saturday-Sunday and there are special activities each weekend.

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.

Settlers' Day  | South Holland

FREE

Visit with costumed living history demonstrators, representing American history from French fur trading days, pioneer times, and the Revolutionary and Civil War periods.  Activities include joining an imaginary wagon train, guided history hikes, trying your hand at a two-person buck saw, and making a craft.

Search for gnomes in the Children's Garden using your best "I Spy" skills. Checklist provided.

Drop in anytime between 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the conservatory's Elizabeth Morse Genius Children's Garden to plant an imaginary garden, build a tropical habitat, help water the plants, or read a book under the tropical canopy. Runs through entire 2012.

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.

Features samplings of the country's finest chocolates, education sessions about chocolate-related topics, a "Pairings Pavilion," interactive demonstrations and a chocolate art gallery by the French Pastry School.

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.

Kids enter artist Gino Severini's interpretation of trains by role-playing engineer, passenger or conductor in a child-size train and look for objects in an eight-foot wide "hidden pictures" mural of artist Don Stewart's "Steam Train."  Plus, enjoy specially designed wooden train tables and a huge new interactive crane.

The exhibit features the illustrations of W. W. Denslow, a Chicago resident whose famous illustrations helped to inspire the design of the classic 1939 MGM film starring Judy Garland. The bright and colorful exhibit provides a variety of learning opportunities and hands-on activities within a three-dimensional representation of Denslow's distinctive illustrations.

Discover how sounds make music, and how music makes you feel, with activities like making melodies on bolt- and wrench-a-phones, using soft sculpture pegs to make a music box, blowing air over a reed, moving musical notes on a staff, beating percussion instruments, and creating an artistic masterpiece that reflects how music makes you feel

Miss Carol's cross-curricular music and movement instantly invite audiences to join in singing, dancing and rhythmic movement. She'll engage and entertain us with music from her six popular children's CDs.

Take a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the world of magic and its historic roots in Chicago. Features a multimedia object theater experience, artifact display and live performances. Discover the tricks of the trade and witness Chicago's magical past reappear before your very eyes.

A concert of acoustic guitar, folk music, and storytelling set to song produced by Des Plaines' own Tim Vana. To order tickets, contact the Des Plaines History Center at 847-391-5399.

Talented local artisans sell unique handmade gifts including art jewelry, hand-knitted and woven scarves and garments, ornaments, wood carvings, paintings, and glass. A visit from Santa, strolling carolers and Christmas trees decorated by local preschools add to the fun.

A special exhibit on the history of Girl Scouting, with special focus on Oak Park, River Forest, and Forest Park. Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

Hundreds of objects and documents from the exclusive private collection, together with a rare collection of first editions of his most famous works, tell the story of how Charles Dickens and his characters became enduring cultural icons. Interactive and multi-media displays and personal effects take visitors through a chronological tour of the life, literature and legacy of Dickens. View his personal traveling inkwell, take a ride in an early century carriage, and learn about the memorable characters, stories and themes of his famous tales through games, time period puzzles and Dickens' own personal Facebook page.