Columbus, OH

Have a very safe and happy New Year! Remember if you are drinking DON’T DRIVE!!!

I’ll be back in ‘08 with more great things to see and do in Columbus~

This weekend, take a break from the shopping frenzy and . . .

Enjoy a Dickens of a Mystery at the Ohio Village

Ohio Historical Center

Did you ever wonder what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge after his famous Christmas day reformation? You are in for a grand surprise in this dinner theater production of a Dickens of a Mystery. Enjoy a holiday buffet, witness a series of events and then help solve the mystery.

Tonight Friday Dec. 21
Thursday-Friday 6-9 p.m.
$57. $4 parking. Reservations Required.
1982 Velma Ave., Columbus
614-297-2666, 800-686-6124

or you could . . .

Head down to Alum Creek State Park and enjoy the Holiday Fantasy of Lights . . .

Come to the Alum Creek Marina and take a drive through the Holiday Fantasy of Lights. The 1 1/2 mile drive features more than one million lights and 100 displays, including a giant American flag and some with animation. After your drive, stop in at the Marina Boat House to visit Santa Claus at his Gift Shop and enjoy free cookies and hot chocolate.

Through the 30th.
Sunday-Thursday 5:30-9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday 5:30-10:30 p.m.
Monday-Thursday $10. Friday-Sunday $15. Pictures with Santa $5.
3615 S. Old State Rd., Delaware
740-548-4631, 740-548-6056

or you could catch a holiday classic at . . .

The Park St. theater where Columbus Children’s Theater is performing

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

They’re back! After a sold-out run in 2003, the Herdmans return to CCT in this hilarious Christmas tale. A couple, struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant, is faced with cast the Herdman kids. These are probably the most inventively awful kids in history. When the Herdmans collide with the Christmas story head-on - you won’t believe the mayhem and fun that ensues. This production is described by McCall’s magazine as “an American classic” and the Seattle Times says it’s “One of the best Christmas stories - ever - and certainly one of the funniest.

And Have A Very Merry Christmas!

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So, you are stuck in the middle of the holiday season. You’ve got about a zillion things to do and only half your presents bought and simply no time for yourself right now. Whoa, honestly, it sounds like it’s time for you to pause just take an evening to breathe and enjoy the Holiday season.

If you’ve never seen The Nutcracker live it is one of the things I honestly believe every lover of Christmas, ballet or family should do. This classic tale of a Christmas Eve dream is a musical and visual delight for every age.

While I certainly haven’t been able to see this every year, I have seen it enough to know that it is something you need to see more than once. When you go as a child you get something out of it that is different from what you get when you go as a young couple, or as new parents, or even as grandparents. You relate to the characters differently and take home something you missed the last time.

And the show is a truly new show each and every year with the new artists bringing out new and different emotions and expressions of the music than the artists from the year before.

Amazingly, The Nutcracker Suite was Tchaikovsky’s least favorite of his own works. Which goes to show that we can never tell what part of our lives will live on and what will fade away.

This year, Roger Moore, yes the one you are thinking of (Bond, James Bond) will be adding his own touch of delight to the holiday festivities by narrating this classic children’s tale.

The Nutcracker is a presentation of Ballet Met and is held each Christmastime at the Ohio Theater. If you’ve never been to the Ohio Theater, try to get there early to get a good look at the gorgeous archetecture, and marvel at the fact that Columbus nearly lost this piece of local history. Now a true landmark, the theater was close to destruction before an effort to “Save the Ohio” raised two million dollars for it’s restoration, a hefty sum in the early seventies. So get there early or linger a moment afterward to appreciate the beauty of the building and the decor that we so nearly lost some forty years ago.

(By the way, my favorite place to sit at the Ohio Theater is front row balcony. It’s my perfect view.)

BalletMet: The Nutcracker
Ohio Theatre
39 E. State St., Columbus

Dec. 8-9: Saturday 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday 1 p.m.
Dec. 14-16: Friday 7:30 p.m. Saturday 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Dec. 19-23: Wednesday-Thursday 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

614-229-4848
Tickets: $18.50-$64.50

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You may not be able to go back in time and experience Christmas in the true Victorian era, but you can visit Easton.

Christmastime is my favorite time of the year at Easton Town Center. The big tree is up and looking more beautiful than ever. All the stores are lit up with lights and their own special Christmas touches. The trumpeter is playing and the carolers are singing.

You didn’t know? Easton celebrates Christmas like no regular shopping center ever does. There is live entertainment every day. The classic sounds of brass ensembles and groups of carolers in vintage dress are there inside and out to entertain shoppers.

In addition, Easton’s horse-drawn carriage service makes the rounds every weekend throughout the season. For a nominal fee, you and your sweetheart can take a carriage ride. When it’s snowing you’ll be quietly singing to yourself “Over the river and through the woods . . .” but Grandma’s house will probably have to wait since you’ll be busy at the over 100 stores finding her just the right gift.

Easton doesn’t stop at plain old horses though. No. Because what would Christmas be without a visit from Santa? And you know Santa doesn’t fly commercial, it’s first class all the way for our jolly old elf. So visit Easton on the 16th and you’ll get to see Santa’s own live reindeer on the town square.

While you are there, stop into Godiva for their special peppermint hot chocolate, a real Christmas treat. Then you can look out onto the square and see the amazing ice sculptures. If you miss those on the 16th, you can come again on the 20th for a second chance.

I know this season is hectic, and even at Easton the parking can be frustrating enough to make you want to do all your shopping online. But there is so much great stuff that goes on at Easton during the holiday season. (And I’m not just talking about the sales.) Easton has succeeded at doing the thing so many other shopping venues attempt at Christmas but never quite do—it has made itself a destination, an experience that is so much more than shopping. But with so many great shops, everything from Abercrombie to Z Gallerie, I’m willing to wager you’ll have fun doing a little bit of that too.

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Today we got the snow that I have been so dreading. It’s not really snow I hate, just the cold and the mess of terrible drivers that the snow brings out.

It seems to me the people on the freeways cannot possibly be the same ones that were on the freeways last year. Can it? I mean, we are here year after year and we simply can’t seem to figure out how to drive when the white stuff starts falling. It would seem to me that even if every person on the freeway was new to Ohio last year, they would at least have gotten some experience driving in the stuff.

I’m not trying to be one of those people who bitches for no reason. I understand people need to slow down. Actually, if people would just slow down, allow a little extra time to get where they need to go, and respect the road we’d have a lot less trouble this time of year. It’s not the people who take it a little slower that cause trouble. It’s people who think they don’t need to that cause the trouble. Go flying down a snow covered highway in your car and you are likely to end up in the ditch. Go flying down a snow covered highway in your 4 wheel drive truck or SUV and you are likely to cause someone else to end up in the ditch. Either scenario could easily cause a very bad crash, and the crashes are what cause the real traffic tie ups.

So please, just take your time. Buckle up. Be alert. Stay alive.