Zombies! 8Nothing says zombies quite like Christmas. You think I’m kidding, don’t you. You think that zombies should be relegated to Halloween. Well, it’s true. Zombies are an excellent metaphor for the conspicuous consumption of Christmas. This is not an original claim on my part. George Romero pointed it out in 1978 when he set Dawn of the Dead inside a shopping mall. Where did the zombies congregate? The shopping mall. Powerful stuff.

Zombies have returned to the cultural forefront in a big way in the last several years. A number of excellent zombie movies have been produced, including a remake of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, Land of the Dead and the spoof, Shaun of the Dead. Max Brooks published a fantastic zombie novel, World War Z. Stephen King recently did a take on the zombie legend with Cell. A number of really good video games have focused on zombies, recently, as well: Stubbs the Zombie, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space. Zombies are hip and cool. And terrifying.

So when the Chicago Zombie organized a skating event at one of the most touristed locations in Chicago in the middle of December, I grabbed my camera and ran to get some pictures. Zombie hordes shuffling into Millennium Park and out onto the ice begs to be photographed.

What do you want for Christmas? Braaaaaains!