Couple holding sold sign in front of home

Moving Made Easy!

Don’t let the act of moving stand in the way of living your best life! The Garlands relocation experts will help you sell your current home – without the stress and with outstanding results. Plus leave the packing, moving and unpacking to us! Find out how to get a jump on the Spring real estate market at our “Moving Made Easy” seminar.

Couple holding sold sign in front of home

Moving Made Easy!

Don’t let the act of moving stand in the way of living your best life! The Garlands relocation experts will help you sell your current home – without the stress and with outstanding results. Plus leave the packing, moving and unpacking to us! Find out how to get a jump on the Spring real estate market at our “Moving Made Easy” seminar.

Harper College: A Child Shall Lead Them with Myra Loris

In the second of her five-part series “Why I’m Optimistic,” Myra Loris takes a look at the prominence of young people as agents of social change and expanded equality both past and present. Topics include the Children’s March of 1903, the Children’s Crusade of 1963, the “Never Again” March of 2018, and much more. She breaks down trends and events in contemporary American life that encourage optimism;in short, why we have reasons to be optimistic.

The Amazing Adventure of Bertha Benz (and the history of the German automobile)

Porsche, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes Benz have millions of fans all over the world and are synonymous with the quality and success of German engineering. Hardly anyone knows, however, that the history of the automobile’s origin is, to a great extent, due to Bertha Benz, a young mother of five, who, in a secret attempt to visit her mother, became the first human being to drive an automobile over a long distance. Join German historian Anette Isaacs, M.A., as she introduces you to Bertha Benz who was born 170 years ago and who truly changed the world with her history-making adventure!

Crockpot

Winter Crockpot Cooking Demo and Tasting

Ann Wayne, an instructor at One Life Kitchen in Barrington and recently of the Daily Herald Cook of the Week Challenge, will demonstrate two easy and delicious crockpot recipes, one for a soup and one for a stew. These recipes can also be made in standard stove-top pots. Delicious tasting at the end.

Evening Concert with Chris Colletti

Singer Entertainer Chris Colletti keeps the music of the Big Band Era alive as he takes you on a journey back to a sweeter, simpler time … when a song and its lyrics really meant something. They touched us…many times so deeply that we will forever hold them close to our hearts. Chris’s energy and enthusiasm, style, lyrical interpretation, and powerful vocal styling
make his date here a don’t miss an hour of enjoyment.

coffee mugs

Pop-Up Shop: Valentine Hugs and Mugs

GiGi’s Playhouse runs free therapeutic, educational, and career-oriented programs for children and adults with developmental
disabilities. Their mission is to change the way the world views Down Syndrome. This Pop-Up Shop will feature the personalized
gifts sold in their retail shop. GiGi’s looks forward to spreading some love here at The Garlands.

Tea and cookies

The Garlands Holiday Tea

The holiday tradition continues with an assortment of tasty teas, a selection of tea sandwiches, sweet mini-pastries, and, of course, scones and lemon curd. The Nutcracker dancers will dazzle and Snow Queens and Sugar Plums while guests sip, nibble and savor the season.

Holiday singers

Silver Bells and THE DIAMONDS

It’s A Doo-Wop Holiday! The Diamonds’ newly revamped holiday show, Silver Bells and Diamonds, will have you out of your seat with high-energy favorites. Then the foursome sing a Christmas medley and then classic tunes from the 50’s and early 60’s, including their biggest hit, Little Darlin’, all featuring their signature harmony-filled vocals and always-entertaining stage presence. Last summer the Diamonds performed here to rave reviews.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor- A Day of Infamy

December 7, 1941: the event that propelled the United States into the Second World War. Battlefield expert and author Robert Mueller reviews why and how the Japanese almost wiped out the American Pacific Fleet in one fell swoop. Using the individual stories of men who responded to the attack, Mr Mueller presents the tactics and consequences of the most treacherous assault ever launched upon American soil. The program ends with a review of surviving relics and, appropriately, a visit to National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Margret Thatcher

The Mystery of Living – Packing for Syria with Agatha Christie

You are in the room with prolific British “Queen of Crime” author, Agatha Christie, creator of such famous detectives as Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian, and English spinster Miss Jane Marple. Ms. Christie will enjoy a career spanning more than 50 years, and her work will sell into the billions. But today the year is 1949, and you have come to keep her company at her home in Devon. Agatha Christie is going away, and she has some things to tell you. Betsey Means, who recently brought us children’s advocate Mother Jones, animates the Queen of Crime.

Chicago True Stories

Last spring Martina Mathisen brought us the wildly creative Six Wives of Henry VIII. Now she turns our attention to Chicago during the 1920’s, a time saturated with surprise, sequins … murder! Sit in as 1920’s flapper Flora shows you how fashion, crime, and prohibition mixed with explosive creativity to shape the decade of the century. Learn how reality relates to the 2002 Oscar-winning film Chicago. Travel back to 1920 and decide for yourself what’s fact and what’s fiction in Chicago True Stories.

Secret Places/Unknown Spaces

Author and historian Jerome M. O’Connor shares insights from his upcoming book which observes the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2020. Indispensable to the re-telling is that he personally visited all sites. Explore the British airfields, including pilot and movie star Jimmy Stewart’s base, where the Eighth Air Force launched attacks against Germany. See Berlin then and now. Enter the Berlin house where, over breakfast, the “final solution” to murder Europe’s Jews was decided. View the London mansion where 63 captured German generals lived in near luxury – or so they thought.

Hitler Vs. Art

Being obsessive-compulsive about all of his ideas, Adolph Hitler was specific about which sculpture, paintings, dance and music would be tolerated and collected by the Reich and which “degenerative” art had to be destroyed. Harper College instructor Ann Leslie takes you down the Nazi path of destruction as she describes how they stole and destroyed some of the world’s most precious work.

Agriculture graphic

Why It Matters: Culture

What is the role of the arts and culture? Harper College instructor Myra Loris explores some of the ways in which culture has reflected and created a unique American historical experience. Review the New Deal Arts Programs at the 1933 and 1965 World’s Fairs, art as a propaganda tool during WWII, and more.