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CINCINNATI: HOLIDAY FUN IN THE QUEEN CITY

Downtown Cincinnati and the John A. Roebling suspension bridge from Kentucky
View of downtown Cincinnati, the John A. Roebling suspension bridge and the mighty, muddy Ohio River

From 1968 until we sold our family house in 2019, the Village of Terrace Park was the place I called home. When it comes to the holidays in Cincinnati, names and locations may change, but the core festivities remain the same. Use this to help plan your next holiday season:

  1. PNC Festival of Lights (Nov. 16, 2019 – Jan. 4, 2020) at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens: It can get a little crowded under a canopy of lights but who doesn’t want to say hello to Fiona, the resident rock star hippo?
  2. Holiday Junction featuring the Duke Energy Trains (Nov. 8, 2019 – Jan. 5, 2020) at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal: With more than 300 rail cars, 60 engines and 1,000 feet of track, this Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad display was created in 1935 as a training tool. In 1946, it was given to the Cincinnati Gas & Electric (CG&E) Company, where it was featured during the holidays in their downtown lobby. In 2011, the trains moved to Union Terminal, a Cincinnati Art Deco architectural icon that opened as – you guessed it, a train station – in 1933.
  3. Zinzinnati Holiday Show (Nov. 9, 2019 – Jan. 5, 2020), Family Nights Krohn by Candlelight and the live animal Crib of the Nativity at the Krohn Conservatory: This bastion of butterflies sits in Eden Park, home of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Playhouse in the Park. During the holidays, it’s packed with poinsettias. And just up the hill off Eden Park Drive at Twin Lakes is a grand overlook of downtown and the Ohio River.
  4. Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” (Nov. 26 – Dec. 31, 2019) at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: Since 1960, this venue in Eden Park has offered the best in live theater. My favorite show was UC Bearcats football player and actor David Canary (e.g. Bonanza, All My Children etc.) in “Man from La Mancha.”
  5. UC Health Ice Rink presented by Fifth Third Bank at Fountain Square (Nov. 2, 2019 – Feb. 2, 2020): In the 1980s and 1990s, the KKK used to anger locals by raising a cross at Fountain Square during the holidays. Thankfully, that practice has stopped. Now it’s just the over branding of ice rinks that’s offensive, but what would you expect in the home of household brand king Procter & Gamble?
  6. BONUS ROUND: From the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, there used to be more than 130 mechanized holiday elves in the window displays of the flagship Shillito’s department store at Seventh and Race streets downtown. With the takeover by Lazarus in 1983, the elves disappeared. Enter Bill Spinnenweber, whose family owns the Mariemont Inn. His resurrection of the elves display is a great holiday story.