Tour of a Mansion

This is the second or maybe third year the Red Hat group has participated in The Christmas House tour. Each year the Desert Club of The Christmas House has a different large home to host a tour and display hundreds & hundreds of for sale Christmas items. The family moves out of the home for a week and club members decorate the home and host a Friday night and Saturday tour.

This is the first time I have gone along on the tour. I put my little camera in my purse thinking, this will be so cool. Pictures of a 5 bedroom, 6 and a half bathrooms home in a gated community in a pecan groove. Photography was not permitted.

 The range hood in the kitchen was almost as large as my bathroom. The kitchen had 2 islands, the length of my kitchen at home. There were two refrigerators and two dishwashers. However, when I looked through the glass window of the pantry door, I could see into the glass-doored cupboards. I saw a package of Oreo cookies. I felt better.

The 7000 sq. foot home had many small rooms on the main level. It was not an open floor plan. There were four bedrooms upstairs; we saw two of them. On the main floor the master bedroom and bath, the 'man cave', the music room, the living room, the foyer, the dining room and kitchen were all open for the tour. A sunken fire pit and a swimming pool were off the kitchen near the patio where a flat screen TV was on the wall.

The curved staircase is in the turret. When we arrived the staircase was lined with singers in period costume singing jazzy Christmas music. A very talented group of high school kids entertained from the upper level and staircase and then outside on the patio.

We parked our cars amongst the pecan trees in the grove. I would think a couple hundred people were touring within the house at any one time this morning. I purchased a can of vanilla hot chocolate and Mexican hot chocolate. Many of the Christmas decorations were reasonably priced. There was a cute set of the Three Wisemen near the front door. They were cone-shaped, made of metal and maybe 40 inches tall. They were marked sold. The price on each one was $550. The same person bought all three, naturally. I was afraid to take a picture, but they were cute.

Visit this website to get an idea of some of the houses in past years and the for sale Christmas decorations and items: http://christmasideahouse.org/sites/cih/