Winter fun

As the temperature drops and the days grow short, a variety of traditions have been embraced to greet the holidays with good cheer. There are decorations of course, which the City of Worthington hangs throughout downtown from mid-November to January each year. The Worthington Civic Ballet and Youtheatre celebrated the holidays at their 34th annual concert by presenting "The Nutcracker." The Welling family gathered together for a Christmas Day family portrait in 1898. And what better way to greet a heavy snowfall than with an exhilarating day of sledding? In the late 1800s, Dublin-Granville Road, known as Main Street at the time, provided a suitably steep sledding path for young Worthington residents. And Devil's Hill, a sled run in the Park Boulevard Park in the Colonial Hills neighborhood, challenged and delighted a generation of Worthington kids. Perhaps its name came from the hill with the "tree of a thousand roots," according to Worthington resident John Snouffer, who grew up sledding in the park.