Entering the Hold over KRENA

One of the requirements for maintaining your IFR currency is to demonstrate holding. This practice must occur at least once every 6 months in order to be legal to fly in the clouds.
On November 3, we departed off of Burlington , Wisconsin, Municipal Airport onto the night sky. Although gusty winds had impacted flights before sunset, much lighter winds were the rule after the sun went down. Despite the light winds at the surface, westerly winds at 25 kkk no ots existed above 2,000 feet.
Once we left the area near Burlington ($4.50 per gallon 100LL), we contacted Chicago Approach Control at 3,000 feet for VFR advisories. We explained that we planned on holding over Krena, they asked us in what direction we would be holding. Using the drop-down menu on the Garmin, we programmed in a holding pattern manually (instead of activating the published holding pattern).
We circled around the pattern twice. When we wanted to start making our way back to DuPage County Airport, the controller was busy working aircraft into O’Hare. We could not get a word in. We were VFR, but the controller noted our southbound heading and said, “Are you heading toward DuPage?”
We confirmed that and he vectored us for the RNAV Runway 20 Right approach.