Geneva’s Holiday House Tour returns with Christmas Walk for a ‘Norman Rockwell evening’

GENEVA – Geneva’s Christmas Walk and the Holiday House Tour will be back next month, including one home with a recently remodeled kitchen.

Geneva aldermen approved a special event application for the Christmas Walk on Dec. 2 and the Holiday House Tour on Dec. 2 and 3, hosted by the Geneva Chamber of Commerce.

This year the tour includes 1st Ward Alderman Michael Bruno’s house in the city’s historic district.

“Your predecessor has been asking for the house and I kept saying not until I get the kitchen done,” Bruno said at the Nov. 7 meeting. “Twenty-seven years, we got the kitchen done.”

“We caught him at a good moment,” Chamber President Paula Schmidt said.

Scentimental Gardens and All Chocolate Kitchen will be Bruno’s house decorators, he said.

“We are excited to have Christmas Walk coming back again … same little Norman Rockwell evening for Christmas Walk,” Schmidt said. “We’ll have the chestnuts and the singers and the carolers and Santa and the mayor welcoming everyone.”

Santa will be in the Chamber visitors’ center so that people can get reservations, Schmidt said.

“The minute we put it up, it’s sold out,” Schmidt said.

The house tour will feature two houses in the historic district, two houses on each side of the city and a townhouse by Fisher Farms, she said.

“Tickets are going like wildfire this year,” Schmidt said. “We are getting a lot of people coming back from previous years that have not been here the last two, three years. … We’re excited to have a nice array of different homes this year.”

Ticket information is available on the Chamber website, www.genevachamber.com.

Schmidt said the Chamber is looking for volunteers to help for Christmas Walk and the house tour.

To volunteer for the Christmas Walk, call the Chamber at 630-232-6060.

To volunteer for the house tour, see the Chamber signup on its website, www.signupgenius.com.

Chamber spokeswoman Laura Rush said they pay $10 an hour for people to staff the third and last shift from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday night, Dec. 2.

“Because we’ve got Christmas Walk going on, we started paying them,” Rush said. “They have the option if they want to take the pay or take what was paid and donate it to a nonprofit.”