5 minute read
Message from the Director
FROM THE DIRECTOR A Christmas Candlelight House Tour Tradition
COVID-19 disrupted many important things in practically everyone’s routines. I suppose the term “important” is relative. And considering the tremendous loss of life worldwide, anything else is essentially trivial. Nonetheless, many things that people planned or looked forward to were cancelled or postponed, as much in our lives stood still in time.
Advertisement
One of the annual traditions my wife, Cheryl, and I have had was taking part of Cape May MAC’s annual Christmas Candlelight House Tour. We weave it into our December calendar as part of the celebration of our anniversary and my birthday. This Christmas will be our 31st together, 22nd as a married couple.
For us, it’s not just about Christmas and the Candlelight Tours, but it’s Cape May. We first visited Cape May together in September 1991. We stayed at a B&B (one that is, like many others, now a whole house rental). The innkeepers made the best peach pie we’ve ever had ‘til this day, though! We returned Christmas time the same year. And when our reservation was mistakenly put in for the wrong weekend, the innkeepers got us a room in a neighboring B&B, the Humphrey Hughes House. This began a string of stays there, even after we moved to Cape May County in 1994. (The Humphrey Hughes House also recently sold and became a rental). It also started our Candlelight Tour addiction.
Our second Christmas Candlelight Tour was 1992. The following year, we came and stayed at the Humphrey Hughes with two other couples the week between Christmas and the New Year, and didn’t do a Candlelight Tour, but we did do a Lamplighter Tour. Other than 1994 (flat tire on the way to Cape May) and 2008, we made the rest. We even did one the week before we were married in 1999, which was in? Of course, Cape May. I’ll get to the Christmastime wedding story in a bit.
We have wonderful memories of the Christmas Candlelight Tours, some sentimental, some comical, too. Like the time when my best friend brought his girlfriend down from Pennsylvania. We told them to wear comfortable shoes because we’d do a lot of walking, and to dress in layers. Sure enough, she shows up in a short dress and high heels. And the wind was whipping that night. “No mercy,” said I, “My advice went unheeded.” We went from the Angel of the Sea all the way to the Wilbraham Mansion, without taking a trolley! There were also a couple of instances when my father and aunt joined us. Dad knew how much I loved Christmas in Cape May and made the trip down from Haddonfield, where he was living at the time, to spend the weekend and do the tour with us. Just about every time we took the tour, we ended the night with a fantastic meal in Cape May. I recall at least twice we made reservations at Freda’s. The intimate setting was a perfect spot to settle in after three hours of touring the town on foot.
In 2000, we did the tour with another couple but had a bunch of other friends meet us at what was the Pilot House (now Fins), and an impromptu birthday party ensued although most had no idea it was my birthday, which was totally the way I wanted it.
Then there was the 2017 Candlelight Tour that we also took on my birthday. It started snowing early in the day. A bit of a wet snow, but not too sloppy. (Speaking with staff here now that I’m an employee, they beg to differ because they had to work it!). By the time 5:30 p.m. came, it had accumulated about 4 or 5 inches, just a few flurries lingered, and it pretty much just covered the lawns, not the streets or sidewalks. It was magical. And we topped the night off with my favorite, duck from the Washington Inn. Cheryl boldly proclaimed, “You know, you’re never going to have another birthday exactly as perfect in your mind as this, right?”
By December 2019, I had already been hired to succeed Michael Zuckerman as the new Cape May MAC Director & CEO, not to start full-time until February 2020, though. So, Cheryl and I got a new perspective. The first night of the Candlelight tour, I worked the door at the Mission Inn, and took part in the preparation of volunteers and staff for most of the holiday events, especially the Christmas Candlelight house tours. We did the tour ourselves, to maintain the tradition, the second Saturday. And the third Saturday, Cheryl and I volunteered at The Humphrey Hughes House, which was the first time in a while the now former owners, the Schmidts, had it on tour and turned out to likely be the last time it will.
While the 2020 holiday season was severely hampered by the pandemic, we at Cape May MAC figured a way to present the Christmas Candlelight Tour somehow. Thanks primarily to our Director of Media Relations, Susan Krysiak, who ended up shooting and editing most of the footage, as well as setting up a pay-wall account, about a half dozen property owners allowed their homes, inns and B&Bs to be videotaped. The phenomenal end result was made available for purchase on our website. Actually, you can still buy it anytime, just visit, Watch Cape
May Christmas Candlelight House Tour Online | Vimeo On Demand on Vimeo.
While 2017 was picture perfect, actually 1999 was even more so. (Good husbandspeak if I say so myself!). Recall, I mentioned that’s when we took the Candlelight Tour a week before our wedding. The following weekend (the wedding one), naturally, Cheryl and I spent it at the Humphrey Hughes House’s Doctor’s Quarters suite. We had dinner that Friday night at Louisa’s. While shopping after, a store clerk asked where we were from and what we were going to do that weekend. When we told her what the next day was, she gave us a Cape May Lighthouse tree ornament as a wedding gift! It still goes on our tree every year. Who knew then that 20 years later I’d have my own key to that very same lighthouse? What was really hilarious was at breakfast on our wedding day. Seated with other B&B guests, they were all talking
