The entire reason I started TBOX  was to have a party without my friends trashing my apartment... and to meet girls.  IT ALL STARTED BACK IN December 1996, which seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?  Close your eyes and try to remember... there were NO CELL PHONES... maybe a handful of people had them and they were as big as military walkie-talkies.  ALMOST NO ONE had e-mail... and there was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Text Messages... yep, if you wanted to communicate with someone, you, like, had to CALL THEM AT HOME and if you wanted to meet somebody somewhere, you had to BE ON TIME and really stick to it!  It was amidst these primitive conditions that the idea for TBOX was born.  For those who knew me (Chris) back in the day, starting in 1994, I hosted a "little party" in my Lincoln Park apartment called "Festapalooza" -- man, those were fun parties, but within a few years, with my apartment being DESTROYED, neighbors and landlord hating me, it was time to look at doing something OUTSIDE the house... so the bar crawl was the logical place to turn, and I'd heard of this "12 Bars Of Christmas" idea... so I put the word out to my Accenture co-workers, and the date was set... I was ready to party and.......

No one showed up.  I sat alone at Bar #1 and drank a beer, on a bar stool, ALONE, from 4:00 to 4:45. And then, just as I was ready to give up, 2 of my friends showed up... Don and Ty.  At 5PM we headed to Bar #2, where about 15 other people were waiting... and by the end, we were 60 or so strong, and the next year, when we decided to do it again, we probably touched the 80 mark or so.  The approximate route of TBOX1 was, Goose Island, Triangle Bar (now US Beer Company), McGee's, Kelly's, Glascott's, Kelsey's, a few of those other bars in Lincoln, and we ended at what was then "Tailgators" and now I believe "Kendall's" - a lot has changed since then!

Enjoy the pix below and honor our humble beginnings!!!  Continue Down to Read More!

Click Here to View the Early Days of TBOX Flickr Album

Historic Photo of Don, Chris, and Ty on 14 December 1996, Goose Island Clybourn, 4:52PM

The End of TBOX1 (Note TBOX10 #1 Tony Y, Center)

The Second Year... TBOX2, 1997

After the mild success of TBOX, it was really not AT ALL clear whether there would be a TBOX2, and to be honest, it was not even called "TBOX" at that point... it was Just Another Twelve Bars Of Christmas, just another of the many little pub crawls I had at the time.  For those of you who remember, I used to have one every 3 months or so... and they were fun!  September 12, 1997 also marked the 4th and Final "Festapalooza" Party, and at that time, my company had sent me to work in London and other parts of Europe, and I thought I might be gone indefinitely.  But alas, I was back for the holidays, and from a hotel room near Picadilly Circus, I drafted the TBOX2 schedule.  Stalwarts like Bill & Goze joined me at my house again for the pre-party, and it was off to McGee's, which was then Bar #1.  We had about 85 people... it wasn't that different from TBOX1, but it was fun!!

The Beginning of TBOX2, December 13, 1997 (Note 1B Goze and 1C Bill Ford)

Later in TBOX2

The Third Year... TBOX3, 1998, and the Big Jump Up in Attendance

TBOX1 and TBOX2 were cute and fuzzy, but things "jumped up a notch" the next year on December 5, 1998.  Thanks to this newfangled invention called "E Mail", all sorts of folks got word of our shindig.  When I woke up that Saturday (a little after 1 O'Clock or so ... that's right, TBOX didn't start until 4PM back then!!), I noticed, "hey, it's not freezing out" -- and not only was it not freezing, it was SEVENTY DEGREES (notice no coats in the picture below).  Bill, Goze, and a few other friends came over to my old apartment on Wrightwood about 3:30, we had a few peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, and headed out. This spring-like balminess brought EVERYBODY out of the woodwork, and as we arrived at Bar #1, we found about 100 people or so were there already!  We said, "Let's Count 'em!" But how?  Let's write on everyone's hand with a marker!  By the time we made it from Goose Island Clybourn, thru Lincoln Park, and to the former Gaslight Corner on Halsted, it was still crazy-warm, and we'd counted about 350 total.  We also went to Kincade's, The Store, Deacon Brodie's, Corner Pocket, Hidden Shamrock, and a few other places. Some people even got crazy and wore Santa Hats!  And we signed certificates for people who had gone "wire to wire". And everyone said, "Great job, Chris!  This just can't possibly get any bigger though!" :)

Outside Bar #1 of TBOX3, 1998, Approximately 5PM

The "Wire To Wire" Certificates I had printed and then signed for People at Bars 1 and 12 at TBOX3... and also, the first written documentation ever of the phrase "TBOX" (SM)

TBOX4 and the Big Move to Wrigleyville

TBOX3 was fantastic -- it was really warm outside, everybody had a blast, and attendance was more than triple what we expected.  Since we expected at least as many people the next year, we decided to move up to Wrigleyville where the bars were bigger... A fateful move as it turned out!  The event started at 3PM, slightly earlier, at the now-long-gone LAKEVIEW LINKS, then on to SHEFFIELDS, and on to some of the familiar bars of Wrigley, and ended at ABNER'S YARD which is now Mullen's.  The year was 1999 and I billed it as "THE LAST BAR CRAWL OF THE 20TH CENTURY" - ah, what great marketing!  Anyway, it was a VERY happy and VERY FESTIVE TBOX, and the first where I had my own little website to promote it and put up some pix (efesta.com - remember?!)   We had a total of about 650 people -- but once again, there was no guarantee it wouldn't be the last... at that time, there was a good chance i thought i'd be married within the year... and/or that i might be moving to california... and/or that i might be becoming a dot-com multi-millionaire and leaving chicago... but whatever the case, TBOX4 was a Superb way for us to say goodbye to the 20th Century in Style.

A Few Pix from TBOX4 featuring Eric B (in glasses, who moved to Oregon, who I still hold out hope will return to TBOX) and Ty, Goze, and Tony Y.  PS those are Christmas Bells around my neck, which passed for "Getting Crazy Dressed Up" in those days!

Clinging to Life: The Heartwarming Story of how TBOX Survived in 2001 and 2000 (TBOX6 and TBOX5)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but compared to December 1999, things pretty much sucked for me in December 2000!!  Among other things, I was working 14-hour days out in California for my now not-gonna-make-me-rich, about-to-go-under dot com, I was getting to come home less and less, and things were not carefree and pleasant as they had been before... how I longed for the 90s!  But as fall rolled around, the question started to come up, WOULD THERE BE ANOTHER TBOX?  Once again, from my corporate apartment with no tv, this time in San Jose, CA, I planned out the TBOX5 route and send out some emails to the troops.  I made one trip home around Mid-November to scout the bars and talk to a few bar managers, and, it was on... and... we topped out at almost 1,000 people! Once again starting at Lakeview Links, and going thru Wrigley, TBOX5 became a larger mass of humanity, and it seemed likely the tradition would continue.  Sadly, I had to go back to California the next Monday, and leave all the memories behind, again, not knowing what the future would hold...

2001, as for many, was also not the happiest of years.  In the summer, my company had gone out of business, I was unemployed, another relationship had ended, I had given up my apartment in Chicago, and after taking my first long cross-country road trip over the summer, I was planning to leave on a trip for Europe to further help "find myself" and use my last frequent flyer miles, and, bought my ticket to fly from SFO to Madrid, where I was going to drive around for 4-5 weeks and then meet some friends in Switzerland and drive to Oktoberfest, so I got all packed up the evening of Monday, September 10th to leave on the morning of... 9/11/2001. And, that trip never happenned.  And of course, everyone's mood, all fall, was less than festive.  By late October, I found myself housesitting for my friend Michelle in LA (who I refer to as "LA Michelle"), doing almost nothing but going to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf every day and surfing the web, when the emails started to come in from Chicago, "Hey what about TBOX this year??"  And it wasn't much of a debate, honestly, war on terror or not, TBOX and the American Way were going forward!  TBOX6 was ON.  Once again, I did most of my planning remotely, and just flew into town the Thursday before to stay at my friend Danahy's old apartment on Armitage, on the couch, which, was scary, and, I hope they've burned it by now.  But anyway, the funny thing was, I woke up Friday Morning to call after call after call on my cell phone of people -- strangers -- asking about TBOX the next day...  unbeknownst to me, it had been listed in Metromix, with my personal cell # as the contact -- and I spent all day answering the phone.  And... TBOX6 went great, ending up with 1200 or 1400 people, and at our Pre-Breakfast at Clarke's, I wrote the Number "1" on my friend Lionel's hand, and he became the first unofficial official #1 at TBOX. Again, I had to leave to fly to California shortly thereafter, again, not knowing if I would ever return to Chicago for good, and the future of TBOX being, really, the last thing on my mind.**  No one knew what the future would hold!

** I know some sticklers would catch this, but in 2000 I sent out an email jokingly listing all the future dates thru TBOX14 in 2009.  We've come thru and had all those TBOX's!

Click Here to Read All About The Next Year... TBOX7!