Kaylie Sprucebank and her friends Elyse and Bailey Landgraf jumped about with excitement as they described their evening making their way through Havre de Grace for the 42nd annual Candlelight Tour.
The trio spent Saturday evening eating their fill of cookies and candy, seeing the holiday lights, checking out stuffed wild animal decorations and banging a gavel during their visit to the ornate meeting room of Susquehanna Lodge 130, the local Masonic lodge.
"They've got good cookies and good food, and they've got good candy!" Kaylie, 10, of Bel Air, said.
She called the lodge "my all-time favorite place."
The annual tour of historic houses and attractions in downtown Havre de Grace, as well as newer homes in the Bulle Rock community, is hosted by and is a fund-raiser for the Susquehanna Museum at the Lock House.
This year the weather cooperated, which hasn't always been the case. The skies were clear and temperatures hovering around 40 degrees made for a pleasant mid-December evening.
Luminaries – lit candles secured in white paper bags – lined both sides of Union Avenue, along with the walkways to the various homes along the tour.
The Masonic Lodge, which is inside a North Washington Street building that dates to 1906, was one of 17 stops on the citywide tour.
Ten private homes were open, along with St. James AME Church, Grace Reformed Episcopal Church, the lodge, American Legion Post 49, the Bulle Rock Residents' Club, the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum and the Lock House.
Members of the Masonic Lodge welcomed visitors with food, and gave them the history of the lodge, which was chartered in 1867, as well as showing them the meeting room with its high ceiling, blue drapes, ceremonial Bible and wooden gavels.
"We meet on common ground about everything," Baxter Leppert, secretary and past master of the lodge, told visitors. "There is no politics, no religion."
Bailey Landgraf, age 7, also of Bel Air, was excited "that you can bang the hammer, and you get as many candy canes as you want."
Her 10-year-old sister Elyse also said the lodge was her favorite place "because it's big and it has food."
The girls were also excited to see the luminaries, taxidermy projects in one of the homes and the waterfowl decoys on display at the Decoy Museum.
The Landgraf girls' mother, Krystal, said the tour was a great family activity. She said the three girls enjoyed the cookies and the lights, and she enjoyed visiting the homes decorated for Christmas.
"It was fun for me to go into the houses," she said.
The tour attracted a mix of Havre de Grace residents and people from out of town.
Kay Belzner, of Kingsville, and her husband, Chuck, marveled at the decor and the architecture of the Masonic Lodge meeting room.
Kay, a former Havre de Grace resident, said Saturday was the first time she has been on the Candlelight Tour in 30 years, and it was the first time for her husband.
"It was really quite a variety of homes, but one as lovely as the next," she said.
Chuck Belzner described the tour as "a very charming experience, magical."
Former Harford County Executive David Craig and his wife Melinda opened their Congress Avenue home, which dates to 1839, for the tour.
Melinda Craig greeted visitors at the front door and ushered them into the living room where her husband described the history of the house the Craigs have lived in since 1990, as well as their restoration projects for the two-story wood frame Greek Revival structure.
People could also see the decorated dining room, the kitchen and the upstairs bedrooms.
"Originally, this was a farm," David Craig told a group as he stood next to a decorated Christmas tree. "Originally, this was the edge of town."
Craig is a Havre de Grace native. In addition to running the county government for nine and a half years until his term ended Dec. 1, he has twice served as Havre de Grace's mayor and on the city council and also represented Harford County in the Maryland General Assembly for eight years.
"When you're born in paradise, there's no need to leave," he said.
Mary Smith, of Joppatowne, and Barbara Remsnyder, of Churchville, listened as Craig talked about his home.
Smith said the tour was "well worth" the trip to Havre de Grace.
"The houses, and just to see how people decorate, I enjoy that," she said.
Visitors at the Lock House off Conesteo Street, which is the former residence of the tender of the lock of the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, and a toll collection office, could see various holiday decorations, purchase gifts at the Holiday Boutique and see a display on the second floor with a theme of celebrating the holidays during World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
Ciera Fisher, executive director of the Susquehanna Museum, said attendance had been "pretty steady."
She said it seemed like many visitors on the 2014 tour had not attended before.
"The most common question we get is, where we would recommend them stopping first," Fisher said.
Joan Pacifici, of Belcamp, checked out the museum second-floor display, which included front pages from Havre de Grace's newspapers during the war years.
She said she was on her first Candlelight Tour.
"Hopefully, God willing, it won't be my last," Pacifici said. "I'm truly enjoying it."
She called the Craig house "one of my favorites."
"It's so nice for the people to open their homes to everybody," she said.
Bob Magee, the former executive director of the museum and a current board member and volunteer, welcomed visitors.
"People are just in a good mood," Magee said. "People are always friendly, and it's just a nice night to be out."