Join the Dearborn Hills Civic Association, the Dearborn Hills Golf Course and special guest…SANTA CLAUS…for Breakfast with Santa.

When: Saturday, December 12, 2009

Time: 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Where: Dearborn Hills Golf Course, 1300 S. Telegraph Rd., Dearborn, MI 48124. Phone: 313.563.4653

Cost: $10.00 per person (children under 12 months no charge)

Tickets: Purchase tickets in advance by calling or visiting the Dearborn Hills Golf Course. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.dearbornhills.com

*Cash, Credit and Checks are accepted.

*Tickets WILL NOT be sold at the door on the day of the event.

Admission includes a holiday buffet breakfast provided by the Dearborn Hills Golf Course, crafts, music, story time and photo op with Santa. Remember to bring your camera!

Four-legged friends from the Dearborn Animal Shelter will make a special appearance at the breakfast. Please bring a toy and/or pet supply to donate to the shelter.

Closed for more than nine months, the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Michigan Avenue, just west of Telegraph appears to be on the verge of reopening.

Dearborn's Dunkin' Donuts, covered and closed in this photo, is now on the verge of reopening.

The plastic that once covered the windows and sign of the building has all been removed.

A sign on the door to the building says it will soon reopen and that it is now taking applications.

We’re not certain why it closed in the first place but we’re happy to see that it is reopening and hopefully with friendlier drive-thru service than the first time around.

Earlier last week we mentioned in our Upcoming Events section that the Ford Historic Homes District was celebrating its 90th year with its annual home tour from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 6.

Well, The Detroit News ran a fantastic good-news story about Dearborn’s Ford Historic Homes District on Friday the 13th and the upcoming home tour that we’re hopeful will help generate even better attendance than in previous years for this neighborhood association.

This is a Model A home photo in the Ford Historic Homes District taken back in the day.

The article is a shot in the arm for Dearborn and does a nice job of capturing the neighborhood’s charm. It is well worth reading and clicking through the photographs, too.

Here is just the top few paragraphs from the story:

Ford Homes Historic District celebrates 90 years

By Susan R. Pollack / Detroit News Design Writer

Jason Hayburn and his family live in a Model A.

But it’s not one of Henry Ford’s vintage cars.

Rather, it’s a distinctive home in an historic west Dearborn neighborhood that’s a lesser-known — though no less fascinating — part of the auto pioneer’s legacy.

The Hayburns live in the Ford Homes Historic District, a community of 250 high-quality yet affordable houses built for Ford Tractor Plant workers in 1919 and 1920.

One of America’s first planned subdivisions, the neighborhood was built using production concepts borrowed from the assembly line. It features seven home styles — models A-F, plus a modified, four-bedroom version of D — by architect Albert Wood, who also designed Henry Ford Hospital and the Masonic Temple.

The two-story homes, sometimes called Ford Colonials, are set back at different distances from the streets to avoid cookie-cutter sameness, and included front or side porches to promote neighborliness, according to district historians. Building materials were delivered to the site via a mini railroad, they say, with horses pulling train cars along tracks laid in a backyard alley and separate crews of construction workers — diggers, plumbers, painters, etc. — rotating from house to house.

“It’s quaint and charming — I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” said Don Ludwig, a Ford Homes history buff, as he washed the original wavy-glass windows on his Model F home, with its trademark central entrance, on Nona Street this week.

Over in his Model A on Park Street, Hayburn is among 11 district homeowners preparing to throw open their front doors — his is a 1919 wood original — and welcome visitors to a Holiday Home Tour on Dec. 6, to celebrate the neighborhood’s 90th anniversary.

For the complete article in The Detroit News, click HERE.

With Dearborn’s loose leaf collection program set to come to an end Dec. 4, there is a possibility many of us may be bagging that last batch of leaves from the front lawn.

In a city press release, Dearborn officials say this:

“The volume of leaves this year means that City crews cannot reach every street within each trash section on that trash day. It may take three weeks before the leaves on your street are picked up on your trash day.

“For instance, if you live in the Tuesday trash collection section, it may take three Tuesdays before leaves are picked up on your street.”

While the city recommends that leaves not be raked into the street until the day before your trash day or ideally until you know crews are coming to pick them up, a drive through most neighborhoods shows that most are already in the street.

To find out if your city does have a leaf collection day coming, you can call the city’s Leaf Collection Hotline at 313-943-2444 after 3 p.m. the day before your trash day. Alternatively, you may also call 313-943-2107 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. to get an estimate of where crews are expected to be over the next several days.

Now the city doe say that to guarantee leaf pickup, the best bet is to bag your leaves and then set them out the night before trash day. While some balk at the thought of having to bag – with the amount of trees in some neighborhoods bagging leaves can result in upwards of 25 bags curbside – it is better than the days of leaf burning.

The City of Dearborn wants residents to know that there will be people from the Working America AFL-CIO canvassing Dearborn neighborhoods beginning today.

The organization will be canvassing neighborhoods through Dec. 31 in hopes of signing up new members.

The canvassers will be out from the late afternoon until 9 p.m.

Dearborn officials say the canvassers will carry prominently displayed picture identification cards. The vehicle they will be using is a red Dodge Caravan with an Ohio license plate.

The City of Dearborn says it does not endorse or object to this activity, but requires all canvassers to follow city ordinances.

Resident should call the Police Department’s non-emergency number at 943-2201 if they have concerns about canvassers on their street.

The Annual Lindbergh Holiday Boutique is this Sat., Nov. 14 from 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Lindbergh Elementary School, 500 North Waverly, is one block north of and one block east of Telegraph.

Admission is just $2. Children under 12 are free.

For more information, contact: Jeannette Capote (313)730–6593

Enjoy a Holiday Home Tour in the Ford Homes Historic District Sun., Dec. 6 from Noon – 5 p.m.

Step into the past and visit more than 10 homes of distinct style and design during the historic district’s “A Tour of Season’s Past — Celebrating 90 Years.”

Tickets are $10 in advance and can be purchased at Campbell’s Paint & Wallpaper, English Gardens, Village Antiques and Dee’s Hallmark.

 Tickets are $12 on the day of the tour – sales and ticket redemption will be held at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church on Mason at Monroe. Call (313) 561-0535 to order tickets by phone.

The Dearborn Historical Museum is hosting a Victorian Christmas open house from 1-7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 4, at the Museum’s Commandant’s Quarters, 21950 Michigan Avenue (corner of Mason).

The free event features Christmas music, holiday decorations, holiday crafts for children, the chance for children to visit Santa from 4 to 6 p.m. and refreshments.

For more information, call 313.565.3000.

Dearborn Community Chorus, directed by John Haury, and Vanguard Voices, directed by G. Kevin Dewey, will present the Dearborn Holiday Choral Festival on 8 p.m. Saturday, December 12. in the Michael A. Guido Theater at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center.

Reserved tickets for the concert are $15, $12, and $8 and are available from The Center box office at (313) 943-2354.

Selections by Dearborn Community Chorus will include Hodie Christus Natus Est (Sweelinck), Home for the Holidays (Hayes) and carols by John Rutter.

Vanguard Voices will perform Two Kings (Clokey), The New Twelve Days of Christmas (Maddux), and works by Dewey, Handl, and Willan.

The choirs will then combine to present Robert Ray’s exciting Gospel Mass accompanied by piano, guitar, bass, and drums.

The evening will end with an audience sing-along of familiar carols. There will be a punch and cookies reception immediately following the concert.

Dearborn Community Chorus and Vanguard Voices are sponsored by the Dearborn Recreation Department.

The Dearborn Historical Museum is hosting a photographic journey of paddling on the Rouge River at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 2.

Detroit Free Press reporter Joel Thurtell and photographer Patricia Beck share their perspective on the canoe excursion they took on the Rouge River. They expose a surprisingly beautiful and hidden urban wilderness, unexpected alongside industrial properties.

The Rouge River is well-known for the huge Ford Motor Co. manufacturing complex near the mouth of the river, along with steel mills; cement, gypsum and salt operations; and the largest single-unit wastewater treatment plant in the country.

For many years it was too polluted for recreational use, but clean-up efforts have substantially decreased the pollution and a renewed environment is continuing to evolve.

Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the McFadden-Ross House, 915 Brady Street.

The event is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, call 313.565.3000.