The Christmas giving exception

One of the irritations of being in the hospitality business is the grass is always greener—or the snow is always whiter—phenomenon. The closer we live to an attraction like Amish Acres, the less likely we are to see its uniqueness; therefore, the majority of our visitors come from outside Indiana and most New Yorkers haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty.

During this holiday season we are busy sending Old Christmas Cakes, Cookie of the Month gifts, Plain and Fancy gift baskets, and musical theatre gift cards all over the country at the same time our neighbors are equally busy ordering similar gifts from far off places to send to their family, friends, associates and loved ones.

But to every rule there is an exception. Today we have baked 14,720 Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, and Oatmeal Raisin cookies, set up a production line to pack them into 920 green boxes, surrounded them with red and white cinnamon candies, inserted a “Merry Christmas” card from the sender, slapped a nostalgic Amish Acres sticker on the top, stacked them on skids, wrapped them, banded them and prepared to have them picked up at our loading dock. This process has been repeated each second Monday in December for the last seven years. The buyer? A company less than 30 miles away. Now that’s nearly a Christmas miracle!