Christmas in Doylestown Tour Returns This Weekend

The butter cookies are baked, the greens arranged, the wreaths hung and the ornaments polished.

Everything is ready for the 19th annual Christmas in Doylestown House Tour, which returns this weekend.

The 2012 tour will take visitors on a journey through four Doylestown homes, all carefully decorated for the holidays. Since 1992, the church-sponsored tour has offered a peek inside some of Doylestown's lovely homes, showcasing historic renovation, home decor and holiday decorating all at once.

"For a lot of people, this is how they start their holidays. It isn't Black Friday – it's going on the house tour," Kay Johnson said before last year's tour. The co-chair of the event has been involved with it from the beginning. 

This year's tour runs Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Advance ticket sales have ended, but tickets still may be purchased for $25 on the days of the tour at the door.

Sponsored by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the money raised benefits both church programs and the Doylestown homeless shelter, run by the Bucks County Housing Group. Over the years, Christmas in Doylestown has given the shelter more than $80,000.

The first house tour drew about 350 participants, Johnson said last year. It now attracts up to 1,000 tour-goers over the two-day period.

The tour begins at the church on E. Oakland Avenue. Doors to the "Christmas Attic" holiday boutique open at 5 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday, and admission to the boutique is free.

To see sneak peeks of the four houses before they were decorated, check out the event's Facebook page.