42—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 24,1977 ~,
When Joan entertains, she decorates her entire home with natural arrangements such as this pine
cone garland on the kitchen fireplace.
Christmas open house
is fun with planning
By SUSAN KAUFFMAN
Staff correspondent
NOTTINGHAM - Tomorrow is Christmas Day,
traditionally a day for families. Little children enjoy
staying home to play with their new gifts and adults enjoy
the comfort and peace found in small gatherings of kin.
This day is set aside as family day in the list of seasonal
activities, but the weeks between Thanksgiving and New
Year’s Day provide some time to entertain others aside
from the immediate family.
Preparations of food-and decorations, shopping for
gifts, church activities, in addition to everyday chores, fill
up the time in this extended holiday season. No matter
how busy families are with their daily work and Christ
mas plans, they still have time to crowd in more ac
tivities than normal. They want to share their holiday
happiness with friends and neighbors as welL
Time and energy often do not allow families to invite
into their homes all the people they would like to for a
meal or an evening ov conversation. One suggestion for
solving the dilemma of how to welcome many friends and
relatives during the Christmas season is holding an open
house. Although an open house is usually connected with a
silver or golden anniversary or a family’s moving into a
new home, this informal style of entertaining in which
many guests come and go as they wish over a prescribed
tune period provides flexibility and ease in handling large
numbers of guests.
Lancaster Fanning visited Mrs. Robert Rohrer (Joan),
Nottingham Rl, the day ater she and her family held an
open house for nearly 100 guests. Having managed three
open house events in the last six years, Joan has had good
experience and was willing to share many timely
suggestions for planning, preparing, and hostessing such
an activity.
My Thoughts ••• And welcome to them
Christmases on the farm have always been
wondrous eve n ts Nevertheless, year after year
they try my patience to the limit as I’m expected to
give up my childlike ways and consider the
fatigued farm father.
As a small child, Christmas morn meant rousting
Mom and Dad out of bed, which was no easy task,
since Dad usually overstepped his bedtime by two
or three hours on Christmas Eve. Accustomed to
hitting the sack at 11 p.m , the head honcho found
that his day only began at that time on the night
before Christmas thanks to church services and
toy assembly work
Then, the next day, he seemingly refused to get
awake even when my brother and I went into our
most irritating, smg-songy wake-up call. Even
tually, Mom joined in the conquest, rattled him
awake, and down we’d go, all ready to tear into our
gifts
Although this number of guests might seem un
manageable in a farm house, Joan explained that the open
house format makes it fairly uncomplicated to handle that
many people.
Mrs. Rohrer said she first got the idea to hold an open
house after attending one at the home of a Lancaster
County friend several years ago.
“When I saw how easy it was to have a lot of people in
the house in one evening without the problem of dragging
in a lot of extra furniture, I decided to have one for our
family,” she says.-In 19711 held the first one, and started -
with a smaller number of invited guests the first year, I
would advise that for anyone doing this for the first time.
After the hostess has had some experience she can ex
periment with larger numbers.”
“I like to give parties where I plan games and en
tertainment but the open house is a nice change from time
to time,” Mrs. Rohrer explained. She continued, “There is
usually a good mix of people in your home at any one time
during the evening and they provide the entertainment
themselves in conversation..We invite Sunday School
acquaintances, farmer friends, immediate family
members and people we have recently gotten to know. We
also invite the children’s school teachers and Robbie’s
music teacher -the children also feel it is their open
house, as well, since they have guests special to them also
invited.”
Joan and her husband Bob live on the family homestead
near the Maryland border in Chester County. They farm
600 acres of grain and have facilities for 700 hogs. The
Rohrers have lived there since their marriage 12 years
ago. Joan is an elementary school teacher substituting in
But, as we grew older, Mom felt it was time that
we learned consideration for the farm father and
we began having lectures like, "If you really want
to help your father have a good Christmas, you’ll
let him sleep."
That one was hard to swallow. It meant lying
awake for 180 minutes, counting off the seconds
toeach one until 6 a.m. hit. By that time, we were
so tired and exhausted from the wait, that we’d
savagely rip open our presents to get rid of the
frustration.
Then, came the kicker. It happened on my 14th
Christmas and I haven't gotten over it since. That
was the morning Mom announced Dad was going
to do the milking and the barn work before we
opened our gifts -- that way he could enjoy
Christmas even more.
Understanding as I was, it tookall the patience I
could muster to be able to wait the extra 300
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