The Cleveland History Center at the Western Reserve Historical Society was scheduled to open a new exhibit called A Century of Celebrations just after Thanksgiving. But by then, it had shut down again as the pandemic surged. That meant that even though they were designed to be socially distanced, families weren’t able to take Christmas card photos at the series of seasonally decorated vignettes, featuring such things as a mid-century Mr. Jingeling scene and a Higbee’s window display.
But despite that, there’s some good news: WRHS has now put the exhibit online at its website, where you can see how Clevelanders celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah for the past century, and more recently, Kwanzaa. The scenes incorporate cars, clothing and décor that are part of the museum’s collection. You can browse by holiday or decade, gathering book, website and even recipe recommendations to delve deeper.
Go here to start your holiday journey.
A Century of Celebrations online