In a past post there was a lot of discussion about opening one's home to visitors to view one's layout. I know that there were a lot of negative reasons why not to do it, but I also knew from experience that there were many more positives to have an Open House. I expressed the desire to do that once again as I had done before in Atlanta during the Piedmont Pilgrimage every fall. So I had my first of what I plan to be an annual open house yesterday. It was a great success. I had invited fellow Lions Club members to see it, but at the request of my sister, I also placed it on Facebook for folks to come and see. I ended up having 65 people stop by and with the pictures that are being shared and the word of mouth, I am betting that that number will double next year.
With the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History being renovated, the Duke Energy train display was not put up this year, so I had much less competition!!! :-) As for the open house, I had plenty to eat for visitors. I made two pots of soup... a bean soup with ham and my home made chicken vegetable soup. There was plenty of cookies, candies, and salty snacks too. I made a lime sherbet punch and had coffee to drink. I also made out a list of "Can You Find It" for anyone to have fun looking at the vignettes on the layout. It was so fun seeing the kids and the adults go full bore to complete the list. My layout has a story to it and it definitely caught the interest of those who stopped by. Many more folks who could not make it are asking if they could still stop by during the Holiday.
I am including pictures of the layout that my sister took though she did not get any with the visitors, especially the kids which I was hoping. Some similar pictures I have posted before. I hope to post a video too, Merry Christmas to everyone!
Rick
