November 11th, 2009 | permalink

A Very Cleveland Christmas

The follow is a list of things to do, places to go, things to buy and events to attend around Cleveland during the Holiday Season. After living here in Cleveland for almost five years, we have been lucky enough to do most of these things and are looking forward to some of these things that we have not tried or done yet.

Cultural Happenings
All sorts of activities in University Circle.

University Circle is one of our favorite areas of the city. We are truly lucky to have all of the great Arts and Cultural Institutions that we have all housed within its neighborhood. During the holidays, the area is bustling with activities. On Wade Oval an Ice Skating Rink is set up and the annual Holiday Circle Fest is the main event of the season. One of the best and most creative events is the Gingerbread House Display at the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Old Timey
We have heard great things about these Country Lights tours at the Lake Farm Park. This year we got tickets to see for ourselves.
Our children love the Lake Farm Park (and all of the animals there, Sheldon is still in the prayers). We went to the Haunted Hayride for Halloween this year and decided that We could not miss the Country Lights. It entails horse drawn carriage rides, lots of lights and the kids even get to make their own wooden toy in Santa’s Workshop at the end.

Good Food
Cleveland is one of the best food cities in the country, support our local independent restaurants.

The holidays are a time to eat, drink and be merry, so why not help out fellow Clevelanders while you partake? Cleveland Independents makes it easy by offering gift certificates to these restaurants. Give them as gifts, or keep them for yourself. I can’t wait to hit The Greenhouse Tavern and L’Albatros and try some new local establishments.

Crafts & Shopping
There are a slew of local shops and craft fairs around the holidays with great gift ideas.

Mark your calendars for Made in the 216, Bazaar Bizarre and Shoparooni and mark your maps with Banyan Tree, Room Service. You can probably do 90% of your holiday shopping at these locations. I am sure that there are more events and shops that we should hit. Please feel free to add in the comments.

Decadence
Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate.
If you have not tried Lilly’s Handmade Chocolates in Tremont yet, you are missing out. This would be the perfect treat to take to a holiday gathering or to savor sitting by a fire with a nice port, wine, champagne or beer which they also sell at the shop. We will be picking up some of these little beauties for our holiday parties.

Light it up like Vegas
So many light-up nights and  holiday events. Here are my picks.

Last year, we were very pleasantly surprised by the events at Tower City Center. There are many events including a Toy Soldier and Fairy Godmother show, Higbee Window Holiday Display, Holiday Express Train Ride, The Twigbee Shop, Gingerbread Lane and Kringle’s Inventionasium. Kringle’s Inventionasium is an attraction that features visits and photos with Kris Kringle, and where you’ll also meet his entire staff of brilliant toy inventors and take a tour of their wacky and wonderful workshop.

We also plan on hitting the light-up night in Downtown Cleveland and Legacy Village.

Beverage
With many local breweries to choose, there is no shortage of beverages.

I think we may be the luckiest beer drinking region in America. Not only do we get the best beer from the east coast and the west coast, but we also have some of the best beer in the country here in the Great Lakes region. To top it all off, we have a good helping of local breweries: Great Lakes Brewing Company, Hoppin Frog, Thirsty Dog, The Brew Kettle, Brew Keeper, Buckeye Beer Engine and Indigo Imp. All of these beers and more are available locally at Warehouse Beverage and Heinen’s.

Offbeat
You’ll shoot your eye out.
We still have not gone to A Christmas Story House. This is the house that the movie was filmed in and it has been retrofitted to look like the set. I have heard mixed reviews but still think it would be a fun thing to do.

Clothing
All about the C.L.E.

The perfect gift idea for that ex-Clevelander on your gift list: t-shirts from C.L.E. Clothing Company. Nicely designed t-shirts that focus on everything from the Cavs to Dead Man’s Curve. I have to admit we own a few of these shirts. Looking forward to kids versions too. Strangely enough, met the founder at Lollapalooza in Chicago while wearing one of his shirts.

Well that is it, my Very Cleveland Christmas list. I am sure I have missed some items but I thought I would share some of the finer things that Cleveland has to offer. Again, please add anything that I may have missed in the comments. Happy Holidays.

October 28th, 2008 | permalink

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight was the annual carving of the pumpkins at the Roth house. Kade picked out a white pumpkin to go with his Jack Skellington themed jack-o-lantern. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is one of his favorite movies so this was an easy decision for him. Princess Liv went with a traditional orange gourd and chose to have a butterfly carved into it. If we had found a pink pumpkin, I am sure she would have picked it.

While we were at the Fall Fest at Beachwood Place this past weekend, they passed out these little Jack Skellington templates to the kids. It was perfect as Kade had already picked it as his pumpkin design. Liv’s was just a freehanded design. The kids were happy so I guess it was a successful carving.

Tomorrow night we are taking the kids to trick-or-treat down the street at John Carroll University. The children go dorm room to dorm room and the JCU students pass out candy to them. Sounds like a good time.

December 27th, 2007 | permalink

The Holidays

We had a great Christmas day in the Roth house. The kids received a lot of gifts and played with them all day. It was a pretty relaxing day for me as I played with the kids all day as Erika prepared our holiday feast. She did not get to relax as much as me and she was battling high blood sugar all day. Later on in the evening she finally got her sugar under control and started to feel better.

Kade and Liv received some really nice gifts from Santa; Kade, his Buckeye and Steeler helmets and uniforms, Spiderman toys, Rock’em Sock’em robots, Operation; and Liv her baby doll stroller, playpen, swing, books and clothes.

It was nice to have a few days off and spend time with the kids and Erika. The day after Christmas we got out  of the house for a little while. We went to the Beachwood Mall to window shop and later had dinner at the Winking Lizard on Coventry. It was a bizzaro night since Liv was the one whining and Kade was well behaved. Plus we NEVER go to the Lizard on a Thursday night.

December 8th, 2007 | permalink

Holiday Photos

Brother and Sister, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

Today we I spent all day at home. Erika got out for a run and then later on ran to the store for some groceries, but for the most part, we were at home. We tried to get some holiday photos of the kids. I think that the staged photos are the toughest, especially with a rambunctious three year old and an active one year old. Kade behaved very well and helped to keep Liv focused, but she had a mind of her own and did not want to sit still. We did manage to get some nice shots and had a pretty good day at home.

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December 8th, 2007 | permalink

Hanukkah

Dreidel, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

This year, we went a little further in teaching the kids (and ourselves) more about Hanukkah. Kade has had a board book that teaches the basics since he was a baby. He has called Hanukkah “Oregon” or “organ” for the past year and we are not sure why, maybe menorah sounds like it… menorah-gon?

So Erika read the Hanukkah story to Kade and Liv and made some of the traditional foods including potato latkes and cheese blintzes for dessert. We lit the menorah and played the dreidel as the kids ate their gelt. We also presented them each with a gift. We did not do the eight days of gifts, just one small gift on the first night.

Our holiday decor and beliefs are a little scattered, but we feel like exposing Kade and Liv to other cultures and creeds is important. Plus, it adds more days in the season to celebrate. Seeing our menorah next to the nativity scene and the “My First Hanukkah” book next to the “The Story of Christmas” book might seem a little strange to some but we feel it is pretty normal.

Happy Holiday(s).

December 2nd, 2007 | permalink

University Circle’s Holiday CircleFest

A selection, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

We spent the day down in University Circle for their annual Holiday CircleFest. The weather was not the greatest but the mild weather made it nice to walk from attraction to attraction.

For the Holiday CircleFest, all of the museums, schools and other attractions are open, free of charge and have different events going on all day.

Our first stop was the Cleveland Botanical Garden. They have a gingerbread house competition every year but this is the first time we have ever seen it. The detail that the artists put into these is incredible. There were gingerbread houses of all sorts of themes and a lot of original pieces, but the most popular theme was “A Christmas Story” with many different takes on the subject. My favorite was the montage.

From there, we walked around Wade Oval to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This is one of Kade’s favorite places on earth. They had a new attraction, Humans: A Field Guide, which is right up his alley. I have to say, I have never seen so many people in the museums as I did today. It was nice to see families enjoying the museums and it made me feel lucky to have such nice places to be able to take our children to.

From there, Kade and Liv were getting tired, so we headed back to the garden to get our car. On our way through Wade Oval, I had to pay a bribe promised to Kade to get him out of the museum. He wanted a hot cocoa so we got one at one of the food stands as we walked to the car. We made it out without incident and were able to swing by Coventry for some Thai take-out from Mint Café on the way home.

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November 27th, 2007 | permalink

The whole elfing family

The whole elfing family, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

OfficeMax has relaunched their elfyourself.com viral online campaign, much to the delight of Kade. He loved to watch himself dance as an elf last year, and this year you can add up to 4 people dancing at once and even call in to record your voice.

November 25th, 2007 | permalink

Holiday adventures

Lil shopper, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

Erika and her parents were able to get out and get some deals on Black Friday, however, Brittany was not able to pull herself out of bed. I guess her initiation will have to happen next year.

Later on in the day, I took Kade and Liv out to the Sandusky Mall and Toys R Us to do our annual routine of just browsing later in the day after the crowds die down a little. Liv loved looking at all of the dolls and walking a little bit down the aisles.

Saturday was Alayna’s birthday party at Nana and Papa’s house. We spent most of the day there. Kade enjoyed all of the time he had with “the cousins”. Then, we packed up to head back to Cleveland around 7:30.

Today was marked to be our Christmas decorating day, and it did take all day. First, we had to remove the remaining fall decorations that were around the house. Then, we began sorting through and bring up Christmas decorations up from the basement. It was all moving along fine, we were taking our time and stopped to have some lunch. As we [I mean Erika] was stringing the lights on our tree, we noticed we were not going to have enough to make it all of the way to the top. I ran down to Walgreen’s to get a couple more packs of lights.

When I got back from the store, Erika continued to string the lights on the tree and Kade had already begun his decorating putting most of the ornaments on the front left of the tree. As Erika just about finished with the lights, we heard a few cracking sounds as the tree began to tilt. She grabbed it before it fell, but after I inspected the base, there were multiple cracks and did not look like it would be an easy fix.

This tree has been “our” tree for a long time. It was our first tree, dating back to our first small apartment on Wightman St. in Pittsburgh. Erika’s parents bought it at a going-out-of-business sale from a store in Sandusky for $5.00 and its run has come to an end today. R.I.P. tree.

So after we disassembled the tree that we almost had up and finished, Kade and I made our way out to Michael’s to get version 2.0. Erika saw a nice tree in their circular for a good price. We were in luck, they had them in stock. So we made our purchase and headed back home to complete the decorating.

November 23rd, 2007 | permalink

Black Friday

Black Friday, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

Yeah, I will be sleeping in as my inlaws, Erika, Brittany and Marc go out to brave the Sandusky Crazies at the mall. They all should be back before the kids wake up.

October 14th, 2007 | permalink

Fall Sunday

Black and White wagon, originally uploaded by kyleroth.

Today we spent the day doing all things Fall. We planned a trip to the Patterson Fruit Farm and after that, a trip to the Lake Farm Park. We have been planning this trips for weeks now as it is our annual trip to pick out our pumpkins and have some fun in the process.

We first stopped by the farm market branch of the Patterson Farms. This is where we picked up our pumpkins and some apples. They have great pies and other treats here as well. Our next stop was the Family Fun Fest at the Mulberry Rd. branch of the fruit farm. Here they have all sorts of activities for the kids including pumpkin painting, corn maze, hay play area, pony rides, wilderness walks, slides, playgrounds and much more.

The next stop was the Lake Farm Park. We have a membership to the park, but this was the first time that I was able to go. Erika takes the kids from time to time. Liv loves the animals (as long as they are not too close) and tries to make the noises that they make. Her pig impression is pretty good and she had to show it off when we saw a bunch of piglets cuddling up in the pen. Kade showed me his favorite part of the park… a model chicken that is basically cut in half to diagram all of its bones and organs and shows where the egg comes out. That child loves anatomy.

Well, it was a long day, but it was very fun. We all need to get some rest tonight because tomorrow is the ALCS Game 3 here in Cleveland. Erika has to parent help at Kade’s school tomorrow and it is a field trip day. Hopefully he rests up so he is ready for the game.

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