Seven homes festively decorated for the holiday season will be featured during this year's Middletown Holiday Home Tour, set for Saturday, Dec. 11, from 1 to 8 p.m.

The tour will begin at The Event Place, 11 S. Union St., Middletown, which will serve as the tour's hospitality center. Participants can purchase a ticket for the tour between noon and 7 p.m. Ticket holders will receive a wristband, which will allow them to enter the participating private homes, as well as a brochure with information about each tour site and a map of the tour route.

Also featured at The Event Place will be a display by a local artist and an opportunity for tourgoers to win gift baskets filled with items donated by Middletown-area merchants and residents.

Sites on the tour include a two-story farmhouse built in 1886, which will feature antiques and vintage holiday decorations; a farmhouse built in 1875 that is decorated with French county decor; and a house built in 1850, which has Vernacular Victorian architecture with original gingerbread trim.

"We have a lot of historical homes this year," said Carole Shanaman, coordinator/chair of the Middletown Holiday Home Tour Planning Committee. "We have a home (built in 1850) that sat for 20 years and ... someone came in and redid it and sold it to the homeowners who have it now. Then we have a mid-century modern home - a rancher that was left empty for five or six years and this fellow bought it and fixed it up."

"The Event Place was built in 1911, which is historical, also," she added, "(but) we don't limit our homes on the tour to historical homes."

Also featured on the tour is the Middletown Historical Museum of the Middletown Area Historical Society, 29 E. Main St. There will also be a sale of baked goods at this location.

Sometimes, homeowners are on the tour several times, but visitors will notice improvements and new decor. "We have been doing this for 20 years, so some of the people are repeaters, but they always have something different each time they are on the tour," Shanaman noted. "(The homeowners) also go over and beyond with decorating."

Proceeds from the tour will benefit the Middletown Area Blue Raider Foundation's new JoAnn Shipkowski Scholarship, which will be presented to an IEP student graduating from the Middletown Area School District. "The Middletown Area Blue Raider Foundation is a nonprofit that (supports) the school in all different ways," Shanaman explained. "We are asking them to facilitate this scholarship so we can donate the money to a student in 2022. JoAnn was a longtime teacher in the Middletown (Area) School District, (volunteered) at the food pantry and was one our committee members. She passed away in 2019."

In the past, proceeds from tour ticket sales have been given to other charitable programs. "For the last four years, we have been donating to the Raider Packs program, which feeds children (in need) on the weekend (by) sending food home with them," Shanaman noted.

For more information about the tour, visit http://www.MiddletownHolidayHomeTour.com or http://www.facebook.com/MHHT2018 or email MiddletownHolidayHomeTour@gmail.com.