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In her brand-new exhibition, Supplemental Ornament, at the Weston Art Gallery in downtown’s Aronoff Center for the Arts, Murphy-Price presents sculptures and prints that simultaneously focus and exaggerate the relationship between our internal identities and the selected accoutrements that extend our personalities into an array of surrounding decorative objects. All the work on display has been made since she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2005. She now resides in Bloomington, Ind. Simultaneous with her show the Weston also is displaying, through Jan. 10, sculpture by Dietrich Wagner of Erie, Pa., and Pixel paintings by Cincinnati’s Jimi Jones. Tuesday-Sunday.

For a holiday show that will delight kids and adults while teaching a lesson that’s totally palatable at the same time, it’s nice to know that Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) is back with another musical fairytale by Joe McDonough and David Kisor. ETC has done this one before (in 1998 and 2003), but Lynn Meyers and her cast work hard to revamp each production, always finding fresh ways to bring humor, joy and a meaningful message to the stage. Through Jan. 4. $16-$38.

The desire for love is a fundamental urge, but perhaps as basic is the drive to remake the object of your affection. That's the funny and poignant premise of Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts' off-Broadway musical, which Cincinnati Playhouse staged it successfully in 2000; it's back for a second run in the Shelterhouse through the holidays. It's a perfect date-night show but also one for mature audiences. Tuesday-Sunday through Dec. 31.

Ryan McGinness' exhibition of new paintings creates an optical second reality in the Vance-Waddell Gallery at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Lights are turned off; heavy, dark curtains hang in the doorway; black lights shine onto the wood panels and bring everything painted there to life. It's a little disconcerting, looking into a painting and feeling as though you might trip into some "Alice in Wonderland" alternative universe. Tuesday-Sunday through Feb. 15, 2009.

With 300,000 new LED lights twinkling in the Festival of Lights display at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical gardens this year, the zoo will save $30,000 on their Duke Energy Bill. What that means in practical terms is enough power to supply 36 homes for an entire year. And the lights are cool, too. Open nightly 5-9 p.m. (closed Dec. 24-25). Guests can enjoy half-priced admission Dec. 1-3, 8-10 and 15-17.

The wonderful light boxes of Matthew Shelton are on display at Northside’s NVISION (4577 Hamilton Ave.) beginning with an opening reception from 6-10 p.m. Friday featuring music by DJMCMLXXIII. Shelton’s technique for making light boxes evolved from a method that involves first incorporating photographs, then poking countless holes into mirror board. The effect is similar to tin-punch art, which can be used to make lanterns. Shelton attaches small pieces of color gels to the mirror board. When held up to a light source the effect is stunning. Tiny jewel-like rays of color shine through. Images such as the Vegetation Goddess resemble Aztec art. Some of his shapes could be mandalas or an Aztec calendar. His work will remain on display until Feb. 1, 2009. Opening reception: 7-10 p.m. Friday.

Ralph Lauren, along with every WASP-engendered, suburban-circumscribed good-taste notion of the good life, gets it in the eye in Carlton Scott Sturgill’s finely crafted and very funny show, Afterlifestyle, at the Art Academy of Cincinnati's Pearlman Gallery, 1212 Jackson St. in Over-the-Rhine, now through Dec.12. The Ralph Lauren lifestyle, so commercially viable, seems to Sturgill akin to a quiet death by boredom. Sturgill’s versions of Ralph Lauren magazine ads show the models with closed eyes – already they have succumbed. He is perhaps the first artist ever to employ paint chips for satiric ends and, in another neat turn, he recycles Ralph Lauren shirts into handsome funereal flower arrangements. Death, anyone? Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Gary Gaffney's exhibit at Meyers Gallery uses collages that ocus on central figures, surrounded by little scraps of information that raise notions of science, philosophy, spirituality, and the truthful potential of art. In Gaffney’s diagrammatic collages, juxtapositions of cosmology, ornithology and human biology surprise and delight. Little galaxies jut out of toenails; the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing, and both seem to be cavorting with sparrows. But these glyphic arrangements are more like launching pads and instruction manuals to better access transcendence. The artwork is what potentially happens if you utilize the collages as poetic guides. The exhibition runs through Friday, with a closing reception on Thursday from 5-7 p.m.

Santa Claus is coming to town, and he’s delivering flowers to all the good little boys and girls. This year the Krohn Conservatory is celebrating 75 years of their Holiday Floral Show with An Old Fashioned Holiday. Designed by landscape-extraordinaire Tim Young, this season’s winter wonderland reflects the amazing history of Cincinnati through Young’s replications of neighborhood street parks, all decked out for the holidays. Visitors can spot new varieties of poinsettias on display along with traditional plants like pines, spruces, bayberry and boughs of holly … fa, la, la, la, la, la, la! In addition to the holiday foliage, mini Cincinnati landmarks and historic park architecture will be placed in and around the community square. Show is open daily from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through Jan. 4.