Yuletide arrives...

Three days later, and exhausted to the bone, we welcome you to Yuletide time at Bayou Bend. Yes, it is approximately six months in the making, actual "installing", and weeks in the showing to hundreds of usually delighted guests. Who would guess that it is such a production, even in a year when the materials and stoies told are a repeat from last year. (And that is really meant as a statement, not a question.)

Let the season begin! I went out on a limb with my church choir, suggesting they come because it is a delightful way to escape the madding crowds of the holidays. I hope that will still be true, even as museum "visibility" increases. There may not be much about waiting in a line or finding a parking place that is different from going to the mall, but I think we still try to find ways to keep it from being too unpleasant - there are cider and cookies, and hugely funny puppets. There are nostalgic trips to be taken in some of the rooms where toys from Christmases past are scattered on the floor.

There is music in an elevated clear tent that lets in the moon and starlight but protects one from the sometimes chilly wind. There are candles lighting the pathways through the gardens up to the house, and in theory, one could take as little or as much time as one desired to relax and be transported away from the craziness of the season. Who wouldn't want that? (Yes, that one was meant truly as a question.) We will hope for record numbers of visitors this year!