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Dickens Holiday Village


THANKSGIVING DAY - NEW YEAR'S DAY

Olde England comes alive in Historic Downtown Antioch, IL with life-like figures representing scenes from the Dickens Era. Experience this Volunteer Public Art Exhibit. All Dicken's Characters are made from the ground up by Dicken's Volunteers.

2023: Dickens Holiday Village will be INDOORS at Kringle's Christmas Village (#510 Orchard Street) in Downtown Antioch beginning daily Thanksgiving-New Year's Day (indoors 10 a.m.-8 p.m) for you to enjoy. Each character exhibit has a plaque which describes the scene you are seeing and how life was in the Dicken's Era. Visit all the Dickens Scenes, both indoors and out! (Tours available throughout the year with advance registration.)

Thanks to the generosity of Raymond Chevrolet-Kia, the Antioch Chamber offered FREE public viewing of our Dickens Holiday Program, Kringle Village, plus our annual fun events in 2023!

Christmas Musical Light Show
December 1-25, 2023 Daily 4 pm till 9 pm
Antioch Bandshell on Skidmore
20 minute shows running continuously, remain in car and listen through your radio!

Dickens Tour Opportunities

There are several types of tours available for Antioch's Dickens Holiday Village (Thanksgiving-New Year's Day).  Contact the Chamber for complete tour information. New tours available in 2023!

Please allow time to enjoy Antioch's quaint downtown and eateries as you enjoy our Dickens Experience.

Our Dickens Volunteers are very proud of what they created for our community and love to share their stories of the year-long project of bringing Dickens to life while leading the tour.

Click here to learn more about our tours!!

 

Dicken's Volunteers

A Community Volunteer Art Project 

  • In 2012, a Downtown Merchant- Charlie, brought the idea of a Dickens Art Project to the Antioch Chamber. Charlie occasionally travels for business and had seen a Dickens program in another state. With the perseverance of Charlie, the Antioch Chamber began to explore the possibility of Dickens and what a volunteer art project would entail.
  • The Antioch Chamber quickly learned that Volunteers are key to this program. Among the many things Antioch, IL is known for, volunteerism ranks near the top of the list! Dickens Holiday Village has been created from the ground up by volunteers...almost everything was handmade by several volunteer committees which were formed to bring Dickens Holiday Village to Antioch.
  • Mannequin Committee- each Dickens character was handmade by our volunteers, building the mannequins out of wood and even making some of the mannequins movable to pose for different scenes.
  • Art Committee- our artistic volunteers use styrofoam heads, then sculpt them and paint them for our real life Dickens look. Each Dickens head is a work of art in itself and took the artist many hours to create. The art volunteers also create the props, as needed. THANK YOU FOR THE ANTIOCH FINE ART FOUNDATION FOR YOUR TIRELESS HOURS OF PAINTING, etc.!! Thank you Sunny, Larry and Markus for all of your creative work along with members of the AFAF.
  • Storyline Committee- these creative people wrote a story which we used as a template and worked together to create the Dickens experience. You'll see the happy side of the Dickens Era and also experience the sad side of Dickens as you see young children working to help support their families.
  • Apparel Committee- a talented group of women bonded together to outfit our Dickens Characters in clothing appropriate to the Dickens Era, in many cases, creating the outfits from scratch in their homes.
  • Promotion Committee- these volunteers work with our business community to bring fun Dickens activities to the public to enjoy (even for your dogs!).
  • Snow Removal Committee- if our Dickens Characters get covered with snow, volunteer families will come and gently brush the snow off of our Dickens characters.
  • Dickens Guardian Angels- Please keep an eye out for possible vandalism and report it to our Police Department at 847-395-8585.

View a photo gallery and learn more about the work of our volunteers here!

 

Admission is free to Dickens and Kringle for the public courtesy of the Grand Sponsorship of Raymond Chevrolet-Kia  in 2022

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