The Surrey Services Holiday House Tour completed their second successful year this past December. I am a proud supporter of this tour and it was magical, and my friends enjoyed themselves tremendously.

I have written about Surrey before and it is a particular favorite non-profit of mine. They quite literally do good things.

This year I was one of the photographers of the event as well as a tour attendee and sponsor. I have to be honest, it was one of the most fun events I have photographed in years. Why? Number one it was pretty, and secondly, there was no artifice to the attendees. People were there because they wanted to be, and the joy on attendees’ faces as they went from location to location and finally to lunch and the shops showed you how great of a day it was.

And I will give a little feedback of my own, having been on 2 years of tours.

First of all, Surrey Services knocks themselves out for this. The staff and volunteers could not ben nicer. And this event has a lot of moving parts. They work hard.

The shops were even better than last year, and last year they were fabulous. The shops I think have found a perfect home at St. David’s Church, and I hope they secure this location for next year. The one thing I will repeat which I stated last year, is the people who have subscribed for the entire day (tour/lunch/shops) should have dibs on parking. They should have people at the shops location at the parking lot entrances to direct patrons, with again, dibs on parking being given to entire event subscribers. And they need to have volunteers literally check the lots for people inventing a parking space where none exists, people not handicapped taking handicap spaces just to go shop, and those who feel the need to take up multiple parking spaces with one vehicle. This is NOT Surrey’s fault, it’s the simple fact that humans can be selfish.

The homes this year were wonderful. My feedback is the homes which were enjoyed the most were the homes where they followed the assignment: that this was a holiday house tour. I think some might feel that decorating for the holidays might be a wee bit passé, or clash with the interior design, or they are a bit fearful of holiday decorating. Look, that is what the patrons are signing up for. No matter what holidays you celebrate, as long as it isn’t a lawn full of blow up figures that are the stuff nightmares can be made of, decorate for the holidays. We aren’t only here to see the interior design, we are there for the Christmas and holiday of it all.

I also need to comment on the fact that the tour goers need to remove their floor protective booties between houses. If you don’t, then it defeats the purpose of wearing the booties to keep from dragging dirt into these beautiful homes. The other reason is just practical: if you don’t take the time to remove them, you are creating a slip and fall risk for yourself and we saw that when we go to St. David’s for the shops and lunch. A woman who still had her booties on in the parking lot at St. David’s slipped and fell.

My two favorite houses were in Bryn Mawr and one of the Wayne houses. They were not only spectacular houses, but they let their holiday spirits fly and the love showed. Those were the homes people connected with and you could see people trying to figure out if they could create a similar look. They were inspirational.

Technically Christmas can stay up until epiphany, so I hope you all are still enjoying at least some of your holiday decorations still.

I am sharing some of my favorite moments of the Surrey tour this year.

I look forward to next year’s tour and a big thank you to Surrey and the homeowners who shared their holidays with us!