A Dickens of a Tale

After Thanksgiving 2017 in Cincinnati, Dear Husband and I stopped by Cambridge, OH. Its cute little Main Street was decorated for the holidays with what might possibly be the most small-town thing ever: a Dickens Victorian Village. Since 2006, individuals and businesses have sponsored the Eastern Ohio Art Guild to create the 180 mannequins dressed in mid-nineteenth-century period clothing and depicting 92 scenes: carolers, of course, but also a widow in black, street peddlers, shoppers, a coal sweep, a glass blower, school children, Florence Nightingale, Father Christmas, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, etc. You can walk up and down the street admiring the costumes and reading the placards. In the corresponding visitor center you meet the author himself in the flesh--er, plaster--can dress up in period clothing, and of course are invited to purchase ornaments and gifts. There's even a display showing how a styrofoam head becomes a hand-painted character's face. We wanted to visit the nearby Cambridge Glass Museum, or else we might have stuck around for the holiday parade and the lighting of the courthouse.

The older lady who took our photograph told Dear Husband he looked like a doctor, 

and I let her know that I was the physician in the family.