More than 800 attend Holiday Home Tour

More than 800 holiday enthusiasts visited the six homes along the Lutheran Family and Children's Services Foundation Holiday Home Tour on Saturday.

The tour's goal was to raise $20,000 for foundation for its general funding. After a lower turnout because of bad weather last year, the group hoped for the rain to clear this year.

Groups of people bounced from house to house, donning blue stretchy shoe covers and entering the homes of six local homeowners who weren't afraid to show holiday cheer.

The houses along the tour included 255 Cedar Ridge (owned by Eric and Kelly Morton), 2191 Aberdine Circle (Pam Morgan), 120 Shady Path (Jim and Michaele Riley), 180 Cedar Ridge Lane (Chuck and Laura McGinty), 1722 Crestwood Drive (Rick Werner) and 2140 Silver Campine Lane (Chris and Jill Janet). Morgan's home is in Jackson; the rest are in Cape Girardeau.

The foundation provides counseling, adoption services, child care, teens mentoring services and advocacy throughout Missouri. They serve 22,000 individuals or families each year.

For this year's tour, the foundation offered a shuttle service for the homes near Highway 177. Melody Anderson, the foundation's development director, said they were busy all day.

"We needed more than 300 volunteers this year between the hostesses and shuttle drivers," Anderson said.

In each home, a handful of volunteer hostesses perused the rooms, making sure people weren't touching the decorations.

At 1722 Crestwood Drive, Rick Werner had a particularly precarious house to manage. Being a longtime ceramist, he has covered his home in ceramic Christmas characters, from the nativity scene in the foyer to angels in a back bedroom. Almost every surface was adorned with a ceramic of some kind.

In the living room, surrounding a rotating Christmas tree, stood a ceramic village of more than 18 homemade houses.

"Four years ago, I realized I could put this stuff together in sections and keep it that way. It used to take me 10 hours to put it up, and now I can do it in an hour," Werner said. "That made life a lot easier."

This year, Werner said he spent about a week and a half decorating his home. When asked about his method for decorating he said, "I just tore the whole house up at one time."

Werner has a few interesting ornaments, such as a sphinx and Egyptian pyramids, that he said he's collected over the years.

"[I got them when we] went to Egypt for one thing .,, There's some on the tree from all over the place -- from London and Nice, [France]," he said.

There are seven trees in his home, but Werner said he didn't have a particular favorite. He just likes decorating for Christmas.

Werner decorates 25 to 30 homes in the Cape Girardeau area with outdoor Christmas lights, and said it's something he picked up from his dad. His home comes with decorations passed down for generations.

The hundreds of people who passed through his house didn't seem to bother Werner.

He brushed off the suggestion, saying: "It's nice to hear people enjoying the decorations, and it's no fun if no one's around to see it. ... I enjoy Christmas, so I just wanted everybody to be able to enjoy it."

smaue@semissourian.com

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