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Home for the holidays: Annual Christmas home tour offers inspiration, benefits charities

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Home for the holidays: Annual Christmas home tour offers inspiration, benefits charities

The Spade and Trowel Garden Club’s annual Christmas home tour on Nov. 20 offers seasonal inspiration, tasty treats, and benefits charities.

By Maria Sonnenberg
 |  For FLORIDA TODAY

A holiday tradition for more than four decades, the Spade and Trowel Garden Club’s annual Christmas home tour offers a hearty dose of holiday spirit, plus a chance to buy unique gifts and tasty treats.

The event ushers in the holiday season Wednesday, Nov. 20, with a tour that features three homes relatively close to each other in the Plantation Subdivision off South Tropical Trail on Merritt Island.

“One home will showcase a collection of German-made and Italian-made ornaments gathered during the homeowners’ many years of living abroad, another will highlight family history and all the different ways to decorate with plaid, and the third will feature a coastal color scheme with seashells, mermaids, and other charming beachy items,” said club president Mary Marks.

An important addition to the tour is the craft and bake sales, so popular that the club now no longer reveals ahead of time in which home they will be held. The baked goods, for example, attract crowds with specialties such as New Orleans-style pralines.

“We had to stop letting people know where the baked sale was because they all would come to that house first and we would be all sold out too quickly,” said long-time member Mary Jane Raleigh.

Homes can be visited in no particular order from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Advance tickets are $20, but procrastinators can purchase them for $25 on the day of the event.

All proceeds from the tour are directed to nonprofits such as Candlelighters of Brevard, which helps families coping with childhood cancer; the equine-assisted ministry Walk on Water for special needs children and Life Recaptured, a charity that focuses on helping victims of human trafficking.

Tickets are available at Hailey Holland Hair Salon and West Cocoa Pharmacy in Cocoa; Candlelighters Thrift Shop in Indialantic; Crest Cleaners in Rockledge; Meehan’s and Crest Cleaners in Melbourne and Cabana Boutique, Suga’s Beauty Salon, Merle Norman Cosmetics, Sir Walter Uniforms, Life Recaptured Boutique and Merritt Island Florist in Merritt Island.

The club always welcomes new members. The group hosts monthly social and educational meetings from September through May to share knowledge and ideas and build relationships with each other.

For more information, call 321-704-0165 or 321-750-7509.

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