In a story published this week on TIME.com, the esteemed inventor-cum-youth-collaborator Kris Kringle at Tower City’s Kringle’s Inventionasium was named one of the nation’s 11 best Santas.
“Wearing a red-and-white-striped shirt and green overalls, he sits behind a desk or on a stool instead of a cushiony throne and tells youngsters about his latest invention ideas and invites them to suggest improvements,” writes Olivia Waxman, for TIME.
Kringle’s Inventionasium, writ larger, is a twist on the traditional “photo-op with Santa” premise and one that feels unique to Northeast Ohio. Here, Santa Claus is not the benevolent seasonal deity, arbiter of behavior and occasional bestower of charcoal. He’s Kris — an inventor, a goofy scientist, a guy in the grandfatherly bearded mold of Santas nationwide, but one with the lovable oddball-whimsy of your standard attic chemist.
Housed in Tower City, the Inventionasium is a 35-minute tour which encourages youngsters to interact and get creative in a laboratory of almost Seussian color and concept. Kringle himself is the final stop.
Though it’s great fun for the kiddies, the experience also represents a theatrical marriage of some of Cleveland’s halmarks: a vibrant arts scene, a cresting innovation economy, a fiendish obsession with the holiday season’s finer kitsch.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2013.
I have to agree, this Santa is one of the best. He really tried to interact with the children. Took my 4 year old godson there last week and he enjoyed the experience, even though he just knew that this Santa wasn’t the real Santa. Very imaginative inventionasium, but my godson just didn’t get as involved into the fantasy as maybe it was intended that he would. I noticed that there were other kids who also seemed to react the same. Maybe it was the hustle to get from one scenario after another in the allotted time that did it, I am not certain.