The Inn Crowd

Every year, our town holds a special "Christmas at the Inns" tour of the local bed & breakfast establishments. There are a lot of cute and historic inns and B&Bs around, and this is a chance for everyone to peek inside without actually renting a room. A ticket costs $20 and covers two nights with about 10 to a dozen inns on the tour. Kathy and I buy tickets every few years, and we always enjoy it. (Here's a YouTube video from the 2011 edition.)

This year, a few of the usual inns couldn't participate for one reason or another. The organizers found themselves a bit short-handed, with only about eight inns on the roster. So they asked us to join the tour.

"But we're not an inn!" Kathy and I replied, predictably and simultaneously.

"Yes, we know, but you've got an historic Victorian, and it's right downtown, and you are a business. We think you'd fit right in."

So we agreed. We'd never been part of the Christmas at the Inns tour, but it sounded like fun and we're happy to help out the town. The local Chamber of Commerce supplies musicians (we got a harp and a cello) and two docents to help shepherd the visitors through the building. All we have to do is stand around and be sociable, and maybe provide some refreshments. We decided to bake little cinnamon cakes and make some spiced cider.

"How many visitors should we expect?" we asked.

"Oh, about 90 to 100 visitors. The tour runs for two nights, and you're on the slower of the two nights. We'll get maybe 200 on the first night, but about half that on your night."

Okay, great. One hundred little cakes it is, then.

We spent the day cleaning house, dusting, putting away valuables, and making cakes and cider. Then at the stroke of 6:00 PM, we opened our front door to find... a line of people all the way out to the sidewalk. It was like Halloween, for grownups. They couldn't squeeze in fast enough. We collected tickets and poured paper cups of cider as fast as we could. Our two volunteer docents did a great job of directing traffic and shepherding folks through the house, but we were absolutely slammed. It was wall-to-wall people. Our 100-person supply of cinnamon cakes was gone in the first 45 minutes, and the cider disappeared shortly after that. If you didn't come in the first hour, you got no treats.

Our own unofficial tally put the headcount at about 500 people. But the city says they sold over 800 tickets, a new record. Of course, not every ticket holder came to our house that night, but we're pretty sure most of them did. I've never seen so many people crammed into the house. It's possible that it's never held that many people all at once in its entire history.

Glad we could join the fun. Sorry about the snacks.