There are many ways to say happy holidays.  If our headline sounds Italian, you are right!  Visit the Italian Cultural Garden and many of the other Cultural Gardens as they spread holiday cheer.  Here are some photos of the 2009 Italian and Irish Cultural Gardens’ holiday decorations.

2009 holiday decoration--Irish Cultural Garden

Holiday Decorations, 2009, Italian Cultural Garden

Virgil in the 2009 holiday spirit, Italian Cultural Garden

Talk about painless giving.  Here it is. Start Thursday evening, October 8. 2009, between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM in Jimmy O’Neills restaurant on Lee Road at Cedar in Cleveland Hts.  $15 per person gets you a meal of salmon, pork tenderloin, crab cakes, pecan encrusted chicken or spinach tart with potatoes or rice and mescalun salad with strawberries.  Follow that with a whipped cream cake together with beverages & coffee.  Again, that is all for $15, period.  For another $3, wine or Campari.  Wander two doors north at 7:30 PM for “Miracle at St. Anna”, a Spike Lee film, that looks into WWII from Latino and African-American soldiers’ perspectives.  As the New York Times review puts it:  ““Miracle at St. Anna” breaks free of its own grandiosity and tells a grounded, moving, human story. Not a miracle by any means, but an earthy inquiry into death, duty, friendship and honor. What we’ve always wanted from war movies.”  Admission is $10 for the film.  In English.  Metered parking in back of the theater, Cedar-Lee, and restaurant. TICKETS BY ADVANCE RESERVATION ONLY;  440-527-0644.  Call now while the ticket and food reservations are still available.

Talk about painless giving.  Here it is. Start Thursday evening, October 1, 2009, between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM at Jimmy O’Neills restaurant on Lee Road at Cedar in Cleveland Hts.  $15 per person gets you a meal of salmon, pork tenderloin, crab cakes, pecan encrusted chicken or spinach tart with potatoes or rice and mescalun salad with strawberries.  Follow that with a whipped cream cake together with beverages & coffee.  Again, that is all for $15, period.  For another $3, wine or Campari.  Wander two doors north at 7:30 PM for the film “For Roseanna” which the New York Times describes as a not-very-black comedy and gallows farce.  Takes place in an Italian village where the inhabitants’ English has hilarious Italian accents.  Film is in fractured English.  Admission is $10 for the film. Metered parking in back of the theater, Cedar-Lee, and restaurant. TICKETS BY ADVANCE RESERVATION ONLY;  440-527-0644.  Call now while the ticket and food reservations are still available.

Talk about painless giving.  Here it is. Start Thursday evening, September 24, between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM in Jimmy O’Neills restaurant on Lee Road at Cedar in Cleveland Hts.  $15 per person gets you a meal of salmon, pork tenderloin, crab cakes, pecan encrusted chicken or spinach tart with potatoes or rice and mescalun salad with strawberries.  Follow that with a whipped cream cake together with beverages & coffee.  Again, that is all for $15, period.  For another $3, wine or Campari.  Eat well for the next event, a film, has a heroine who does more pastries than you can believe.  Wander two doors north at 7:30 PM for the award winning Italian film “Facing Windows”.  Winner of nineteen Italian Oscars (David di Donatello awards) and 16 nominations.  New York Times “Critic’s Pick” which compared it to Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” and “Vertigo” as well as “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis”.  Some film! Admission is $10 for the film.  In Italian with English subtitles.  Metered parking in back of the theater, Cedar-Lee, and restaurant. TICKETS BY ADVANCE RESERVATION ONLY;  440-527-0644.  Call now while the ticket and food reservations are still available.  Check out the remaining two films in this series, too.  See following posts.