Now What?
How To Keep That Holiday Feeling Going

He has a Christmas tie that plays music when you pat his belly. She wears a sequined camisole under her black blazer. The lobby is adorned with evergreens twinkling in white lights. Holiday cards are taped to office doors.

Everyone's talking about the vibrant blue lights on Public Square. Every quadrant is ablaze in color--green, red, white, and that beautiful blue. Walk within it, sit on a park bench, look around, and the spirit of the holidays transforms a humbug soul.

It's not too late to catch that feeling. In fact, this could be the perfect time, with Christmas over and a short week at work.

The lobby of Key Tower is decorated with wreaths. Just looking at the lobby of the old Society Bank on the Square transports you back to the 19th century with its red-brick outer walls and arched doorways. The Society for Savings Building is an 1889-90 structure of red sandstone and the most important remaining John Wellman Root building in Cleveland. The intricate stained glass skylight designed in the Arts and Crafts style by Wm. Crane lends elegance to the northeast quadrant of Public Square.

Outside, on Public Square, the words “Christmas bells are ringing" waft through the air on holiday chords from a speaker on the quadrant closest to the Old Stone Church. The wooden doors of the Old Stone Church are simple and somehow sacred, beckoning us a quiet sanctuary available to the public from noon until 1:00 pm every workday. Stop in, and feel the faith of Cleveland's Euclid Avenue barons emanate from the walls below the Tiffany stained glass. The Old Stone Church (First Presbyterian Church), completed in 1857, is the oldest structure on Public Square.

Back on the Square again, check out the old-fashioned cheekiness of the childish snowmen painted on the wood in the northeast quadrant while the ringing bells of Salvation Army volunteers remind us that there are those less fortunate than us. In 1818, Public Square was an unpaved path through the woods lined by log cabins. Women in long dresses and men in high collars packed their trunks and satchels into stagecoaches and large horse-drawn carriages traveled between downtown hotels like the Forest City House (now the Renaissance) and railroad stations.

You would never know that poverty has always been a part of life in Cleveland when you step inside the doors and walk up the carpeted stairs into the Renaissance Hotel's lobby bedecked with tall soldiers, poinsettias, and a traditional Christmas tree. Built by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, which many of us remember as Stouffer's, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 as part of the Union Terminal Group.

Expecting to see the flying machines hanging from the ceiling of Tower City, instead I found traditional Christmas decorations and a tree of red and green ornaments, lights cascading from balconies, and gingerbread houses on display in Tower City. Tower City was developed as a combined railroad terminal and 52-floor office tower by Cleveland's van Sweringen brothers in the 1930s.

Wreaths, symbols of hope and welcome, hang in most of the downtown buildings. But what touches me the most are the voices of strangers saying "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" when they meet my eye. This week we'll hear Happy New Year.

New Year's Eve may be best spent walking around downtown Cleveland, bundled up for the weather and kept warm by a thermos of hot cocoa. Ring in the New Year, out with the old, in with the new. Hope for a wonderful 2010 fills our hearts.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers. Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.claudiatallermusings.blogspot.com.