This weekend a friend and I went on a holiday house tour, sponsored by the friends of our local public library. It was my first, and I think I may have been bitten by a very big bug. Most of the houses were historic homes--one dated back to the 1840s, was the home of a friend I had in high school, and had a cooking hearth I'd never seen. It was fascinating to see how the house had changed since the last I'd seen it in the early 1980s.

I got so many great holiday decorating ideas from each of these homes, particularly the ones that were dolled up in early American style, and connected with some people who love historic architecture and know some skilled craftspeople in the area.

Moral is: try a house tour. They're a lot of fun.