What's that old Christmas song? “Flamingoes We Have Heard on High.” Or something like that.

        At least that's what they're singing in Withamsville, where Sarah Kaiser and husband Donald Dunn have cooked up a startling Christmas display: A Nativity scene populated by nothing but plastic flamingoes. All bathed, of course, in pink Christmas lights.

        “I just got a wild hair. I was raised in Florida, and with all this election stuff going on, it seemed appropriate,” Sarah says.

        So she spent the week before Thanksgiving making the clothes — “that was easy; the hard part was making bird arms” — and building a manger, then the weekend after Thanksgiving installing it. Oh, and photographing it for the front of her Christmas card.

        “I've gotten some pretty amazing reactions. Most people bust out laughing, usually after doing a double take. It really does look like a creche, except they all have long pink necks.”

        The cool part is that it's the second year of a new and touching Christmas tradition. “Last year I did a Santa on a pool float being pulled by flamingoes.

        “Next year it's going to be the "12 Days of Christmas,' flamingo style. You know, a flamingo in a pear tree. For three French hens, I'll do them in little berets and striped shirts.”

        Free toys: So why, you were wondering, were all those people strutting into personal trainer Bob Kramer's trendy Madeira fitness salon with Monopoly and Candy Land games stuffed into their gym bags instead of the usual sweaty gym shorts.

        Turns out Kramer invited 100 clients — people such as Michael and Lisa Illyinsky, Bob Sumerel, Nina Paul, Mary and Gil Richards — to a fund-raiser and told them not to bring money. Bring a game instead.

        Because, it develops, he's working with Wayne Bodington, area managing director of the Westin, on the hotel's second annual Christmas Day banquet. But not for hotel guests.

        It's for 300 clients of Mercy Franciscan at St. John, an Over-the-Rhine agency designed to move families out of poverty and into self-sufficiency. Last year's banquet was a prime rib dinner for about 250.

        This year's, Bodington promises, will be even better. With, he adds, gifts for the kids — more than 100 games from the clients who claim Kramer's killing them — personal trainers you know — but who keep coming back. Sometimes bearing gifts.

        Pricey ticket: So what's this? An early and extravagant Christmas gift for the Reds?

        Well, almost. Turns out city manager John Shirey was at work recently, agonizing over the city budget, juggling zillions of dollars from column to column.

        Midway into his bottom line frenzy, his secretary came in and told him he had to write a $50 check as a deposit to hold his Reds seats.

        He wrote it, gave it to her and was back at the books when she came in again to tell him he wrote the check for too much.

        We'll say. Apparently the city numbers — or maybe all this whining about other teams having all the money — had gone to his head. He wrote the check for $50,000.

        Contact Jim at (513) 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.

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