While much of the city is quiet on Christmas Day, Chicago’s Chinatown buzzes with tradition, food and family.<\/p>\n
While Christmas isn’t traditionally a holiday for many families in the neighborhood, Chinatown is very much alive with packed restaurants, open shops and visitors filling the streets. <\/p>\n
In Chinatown Square, folks stopped for meals and took over the neighborhood where they come when other parts of the city are closed on Christmas Day. For local businesses, it’s one of the busiest days of the year.<\/p>\n
Restaurants along Wentworth Avenue were packed from morning to evening, with lines stretching outside popular spots. <\/p>\n
For many families, sharing a big Chinese meal on Christmas is an annual tradition.<\/p>\n
“This is the morning start, yeah, having dim sum together because this is one of the few places open on the holiday,” said Sarah Puttarat. <\/p>\n
“Yeah and hanging out with my kids, to see a movie, it’s the best holiday we’ve had all year and just a time to relax,” said Simon Puttarat. <\/p>\n
“It’s just really special, because my parents, they immigrated here and so it’s a great way to celebrate them and their hard work, and all of the opportunities they provided for me to be here,” Sarah added.<\/p>\n
And that sense of community is what keeps people coming back every year, calling it a celebration of community and different cultures.<\/p>\n
Business owners said this holiday helps carry them through the slower winter months, making days like Christmas especially meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While much of the city is quiet on Christmas Day, Chicago’s Chinatown buzzes with tradition, food and family.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":471742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,32457,44679,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-471741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chinatown","10":"tag-christmas","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115783084538275172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}