When we were in Northport, NY this weekend, we saw a flier for last year's Leg Lamp Lighting Festival - which featured the lamp from A Christmas Story House
Scott and I drove out to Long Island this weekend for the wedding of a friend from La Salle University, our alma mater. It was a beautiful ceremony, an amazing reception and we got to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen since our own wedding.
While we waited for the evening ceremony, we explored nearby Northport Village – a picturesque harbor town that reminded us a bit of Murder She Wrote’s Cabot Cove. Main Street was filled with restaurants, old lunch dinettes and boutiques like the toy store where we picked up ninja nesting dolls. After a drink at Gunther’s – the bar that Jack Kerouac frequented when he lived in Northport, we did some more window-shopping and discovered a Northport-Cleveland connection.
Next door to Gunther’s is the Northport Hardware Store, Taxidermy and Bushmeat. On the front window was a flier for their Annual Christmas Story Leg Lamp Lighting Ceremony. A few years ago when the store’s owners were cleaning out a basement, they found a leg lamp replica from A Christmas Story and decided it’d be the perfect addition to their collection. They placed it in their front window and had an impromptu lighting ceremony witnessed by a small handful of people.
In addition to the restaurants and boutiques, Northport's Main Street features Gunther's Taproom which Jack Kerouac frequented when he lived in Northport.
This past year was the fifth annual Leg Lamp Lighting in Northport. Since the first lighting, it’s transformed into an annual tradition on Main Street. The 2010 Lighting featured the Northport Hardware Store Bagpipers Band, the Northport High School Tigerettes, a man-made snowstorm and Northport electrician Bobby Cross in the film’s pink bunny costume.
If you go to the Village of Northport’s events calendar, you even have the opportunity to purchase a leg lamp for yourself with a link to Cleveland’s very own Christmas Story House and Museum.
Whenever I travel, I like to bring a reminder of Cleveland with me to champion my favorite city. However, when I find a bit of it already out there, it makes me very #HappyinCLE. It seems like once you flee to the Cleve, you can’t leave — and, to me, that’s not a bad thing at all.
Congratulations, Dino and Jenna Dedic, and thank you for inviting Scott and I to witness such a beautiful wedding!
Congratulations, Dino and Jenna! All the La Sallians pose for a picture with the newlyweds.
