A Holiday Tour of Homes to Put One in the Christmas Spirit

This weekend our local Clay County Historical and Arts Council is holding a Holiday Tour of Homes. Six families in our county will open their beautifully decorated homes for us to visit and enjoy. The tour starts at 1:00 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

One of the places on the tour is the Tusquittee Tavern, a friendly place where people gather to have a drink and visit with their friends and neighbors. Unlike a big city with pubs and bars all over town, our county was dry until a couple of years ago. Few places serve alcoholic beverages.

For the tour, the tavern, located away from town on a scenic route, will be decorated for Christmas and will offer apple-pie cider as well as music and some history. The couple who own the tavern made me feel welcome when I dropped in one day to see the place I'd heard about. On the front porch, a group of adults sat in comfortable chairs sipping cold drinks. I promised myself I'd drop by there again, but it is out of the way from my house.

I plan to have lunch with my friend, Joan, and we will spend the afternoon driving through our scenic landscape here in the Appalachian mountains.

Anyone who lives near Hayesville, NC can come into town and purchase tickets for the tour at almost any business around the town square. The Chamber of Commerce, Moss Library, Tiger's Department store and many other places will have tickets. The cost is small, $15 and the proceeds go to the Arts Council for the many activities offered to our community. 

One of the most popular events held by the volunteers at the Historical and Arts Council is the huge Festival on the Square in downtown Hayesville each July. I try to never miss it. Hundreds of vendors come with art of all kinds and thousands come to shop with them.

CCHAC also sponsors an Arts competition for the high school students each year and a poetry contest for adults and students. I won the adult contest soon after I moved here. Later, I was proud to be a judge of the poetry contest.

Above see the brochure with the places you'll see on the tour. The first one, the Ward home, has six bedrooms, six and one half bathrooms, with many interesting and unique rooms including one for meditation. This is a mountain-style lake front home with a 12 foot Christmas tree.

Another house on the tour, the Nichols home, sits on a mountain top and has a magnificent view of Lake Chatuge and Brasstown Bald, in Georgia.

I am delighted that the people who own these houses will go to all the trouble to make them inviting and welcoming to strangers, folks like me, who come to admire their tastes, maybe steal a few ideas to use in our own homes this holiday season, and help us get into the Christmas spirit.

I hope all of our local readers will come out and enjoy the Hayesville HolidayTour of Homes this weekend. Don't let a little rain stop you. It won't stop me.

I'm back and blogging again

It is so good to be back! For a while I've had some interlopers on my computers that popped up every time I tried to post or read my blogs. My great computer guru, Bob, spent about two hours last evening cleaning up the mess.

We have a local paper, Clay County Progress, in Clay County, NC where I live. It is published only once a week, and by the time I get it, many of the events are over. But this week the paper has two articles about the Tour of Homes here December 6 and 7. It includes five homes and a stop at the Tusquittee Tavern for music, history and refreshments. I’ve been to the tavern and it is a friendly place I look forward to visiting again.   

  

One of the homes will be that of Mary Street who lives in the Elf community. The photo of her house in the snow reminds me of a Christmas card with a wish for all the warmth and love of home. The house is filled with her own paintings, quilts and other handmade designs sewn by Mary. Also in Street’s house will be woodturnings and carvings by local men. All the homes will be beautifully decorated for the season. 

I look forward to the tour this year. In years past, Barry, Gay and Stu and our friends, the Clarkes took a tour of homes in the area each Christmas. I miss those times. The homes are always decorated with Christmas trees, and seasonal colors. I don’t decorate much at all now since I don’t have family coming. I go to my sister and brother-in law's house for Christmas. When I walk in their door, I feel like Christmas has arrived, and I get that joyous but melancholy feeling I've always had at Christmas.

The Hayesville Holiday Tour of Homes goes on from 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. both days and only costs $15.00. The proceeds will benefit the many community and school projects the Clay County Historical andArts Council  sponsors each year. Tickets can be bought at the Chamber of Commerce in Hayesville, Tigers Department store and other places in town.

Arts Expo in Hayesville

The Arts Expo in Hayesville last Saturday was a fun-filled day with many artists and crafts people and a goodly number of Netwest writers on hand.
Shirley Uphouse read from her book, My Dogs, My Friends, and Paul Donovan read his poetry from Ramblins of an Idiot. Carole  Thompson helped man the booth and shared her story from Clothes Lines, the anthology based on a theme of clothing.

Jo Carolyn Beebe, one of the authors in this book, read a short piece. On our table were books by Nancy Sales Cash, Ritual River and Patterns of the Heart, and the anthology Christmas Presence, an anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, that came out last year.

Karen Holmes, our Netwest editor and publisher of the Netwest News, was a huge help to me in taking down the booth after the long day. Karen is also published in Clothes Lines and participated in reading and signing books.

We were happy to have Sonny Boyer from Blairsville, GA join us at our table. Sonny, like many writers, has published an excellent historical novel, but is finding that marketing his book is difficult.

I was delighted when my students Ash, Nadine and Ginny came to hear me read. They had their books in hand and I was most happy to sign them.
Ash, whose essay was published in our local newspaper for Veterans Day, was persuaded to come up and read his story. I learned later that someone came to our table and asked how to get in touch with Ash to ask him to speak to their group.

This was the first Arts Expo held here in Hayesville, but I hope it will be an annual event. We found it to be an excellent opportunity to reach a new audience of listeners, readers, and possible writers. We hope to be invited again.

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Arts Expo - Saturday, Nov. 7, Hayesville, NC

Saturday, November 7, the Clay County Historical and Arts Council is hosting an Arts Expo in Hayesville, NC. Our writing organization, NCWN West (Netwest) will have a booth there and we are invited to read and sign books during the event.
The hours are 10 AM until 4 PM.
Our readings will take place at 11:00 a.m. and at 2:00 p.m.
We hope we have a good group of listeners so please come out to the Truett Memorial Baptist Fellowship Hall downtown Hayesville and support our arts. You will enjoy your visit and meet writers and artists of all kinds. Rob Tiger and some of his group will be playing music during the day.

Tell your friends to come. I'd love to meet them and sign my brand new, hot off the press, poetry book - Now Might as Well be Then - Published by Finishing Line Press and edited by Leah Maines. Great people to work with at Finishing Line. My book is lovely and I am quite proud.

Those who ordered books from me will be receiving them next week. I am also taking orders on Saturday and will have books on hand for folks to pick up for those extra Christmas gifts. The price is $12.00 and I will be so happy to sign one for you.