On Thursday, December 3, the Community Garden Club of Cohasset opens five decorated homes for its Yuletide House Tour & Marketplace, "Christmas by the Sea," from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. One detail on the ticket page changes how the day works. There is no buffet lunch this year. The club invites guests to book their own table at a village restaurant and sends a list of nearby options after each purchase.
Up to 800 people will hold tour books that day. In practice, the club's largest fundraiser now runs through two places. One is the houses. The other is the dining rooms along South Main Street, which fill up on a Thursday in December when 800 people need a midday table. If you're going, lunch needs a plan just as the ticket did.
The day starts at Willcutt Commons
Every ticket becomes a Yuletide Tour Book, and you collect it at the Marketplace at Willcutt Commons, 91 Sohier Street. The book is your entry ticket, and the club says everything else you need is printed inside it. Once you have it, you can visit the five homes in any order and at your own pace.
The details that matter before December 3:
- Online: Tickets are $62, which covers the $60 ticket plus a $2 processing fee. They have been on sale since Wednesday, September 30.
- By check: It's $60 per ticket, payable to Community Garden Club of Cohasset and mailed to the address on the buy tickets page. Checks must arrive by Friday, November 20. Include your name, email, phone number and how many tickets you want.
- Capacity: Sales stop at 800 tickets, and the club notes the tour has sold out before.
- Weather and plans: The tour runs rain or shine, and tickets are refundable if your plans change.
That 800 figure is bigger than it sounds. In a May 2025 interview with the Cohasset Anchor, club director and former president Astrid Peisch described the tour as opening its doors to "about 600 visitors." This year's cap leaves room for a third more than that. The Marketplace is also where your book is handed out, so every guest passes through Willcutt Commons before seeing a single house. The late-morning crowd there is part of the day too, so plan on browsing before you head out.
What the five houses are dressed in
The club describes the tour as an every-other-December event. Each home is opened by its owners and decorated by one of the club's design teams. This year's theme sets the palette: evergreens and winter berries, seed pods and fresh flowers, shells and starfish. In the words of the club's Yuletide page, much of it was "gathered from our own gardens and our own shore."
That sourcing matters if you're thinking about your own mantel. The arrangements in these houses come from the same yards and beaches the designers walk all year. For anyone decorating a coastal Colonial or a shingled cape this month, they work as a set of ideas you can carry home.
The Marketplace is where you can buy some of it. The club lists handmade crafts by its members alongside a curated group of local artists and artisans, with paintings, coastal poetry, arrangements, wreaths, ornaments and gifts on the tables. If you want a wreath that matches what you just saw in a front hall, you'll find it at Willcutt Commons.
Booking the table is now your job
With the buffet gone, a six-hour tour now has a midday break that each guest plans for themselves. All of these are within Cohasset, and each one's own listing or recent local coverage confirms Thursday lunch service:
| Restaurant | Address | Thursday lunch, per its listing or coverage |
|---|---|---|
| The Red Lion Tavern | 71 South Main Street | Lunch Wednesday through Saturday; reservations through its website |
| 5 South Main | 5 South Main Street | 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, dine-in |
| Salty Days Fish | 85 South Main Street | 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday |
| Phoenix Bistro | 380 Chief Justice Cushing Highway | 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday |
Three of the four sit on South Main Street, at numbers 5, 71 and 85. That puts them a short walk apart, so a group can split up and meet again without moving the car.
The Red Lion is the one with the clearest booking path. In May 2026, the Cohasset Anchor confirmed it was serving full lunch Wednesday through Saturday, and its website takes reservations. On a day when hundreds of ticket holders are looking for a table, that's the reservation to make first.
Phoenix Bistro sits on Route 3A, a short drive from the village rather than a walk. The Cohasset Anchor reported its opening on May 23, 2025, and said it ran a lunch special Monday through Saturday at the time. It works well if your route between houses already has you in the car.
For 5 South Main, Salty Days and Phoenix Bistro, the hours above come from each restaurant's own website. A call the week before December 3 will confirm hours and whether they take reservations for a party. The club's own list arrives by email after you buy a ticket, and it's worth checking against these.
A simple sequence for the day:
- Collect your Tour Book at Willcutt Commons and browse the Marketplace while it's fresh.
- See two or three houses before noon, in whatever order your book suggests.
- Eat lunch on South Main Street at the table you booked.
- Finish the remaining houses in the afternoon before the 4 p.m. close.
Where the ticket money goes
The houses are the draw, but the money stays local. The club calls the Yuletide tour its largest fundraiser. Proceeds go to academic awards, Junior Gardeners, Cohasset seniors, the gardens the club creates and maintains around town, and community giving. The tour and the annual May plant sale are the two events that fund the club's work, according to the same Cohasset Anchor report.
That outreach shows up in specific places:
- Graduating seniors: The club's academic award gives $5,000 to four graduating Cohasset High School seniors in 2026. It gives special consideration to interest in horticulture or environmental study.
- Gardens you pass: The Anchor lists garden maintenance at Lightkeepers Cottage, the John Smith Memorial and POW Island among the club's projects.
- Programs: The same report names junior gardening for grades 3 to 5, flower design workshops at Willcutt Senior Center, Holly Hill Farm educational scholarships and seasonal decorations for the Cohasset Historical Society.
The club's homepage counts $10,772 returned to the community last year. Polly Logan founded the club in 1959, and it now has more than 100 members.
Before and after December 3
The tour falls in the middle of a busy few weeks in town, and three other dates fit around it.
On Sunday, November 15, the Cohasset Historical Society hosts a free lecture, "From Meetinghouses to Revolutionary Battlefields: Militias South of Boston." It runs from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Panagia Greek Orthodox Church, 811 Jerusalem Road. Details are on the Society's events page. The Society's seasonal decorations are one of the projects the Garden Club supports.
Through December, the South Shore Art Center is showing JoAnne Chittick's paintings, "Local Color – Around the South Shore," in its satellite gallery at the Paul Pratt Memorial Library. The Art Center's exhibitions page has details. It's a good stop for anyone who wants more local work after the Marketplace's paintings.
Nine days after the tour, on Saturday, December 12, the Cohasset Holiday Market runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Deer Hill Elementary School. Organizer New England Open Markets lists 80 artists, makers and specialty-food artisans. It's a second chance at whatever you passed up at Willcutt Commons.
If your December includes guests who'd love the tour and a South Main Street lunch, I'm glad to help you plan the day, from which restaurant to call first to which houses are worth an early start. And if a house you see on December 3 gets you thinking about your own, Poppy Troupe is always happy to talk through what makes a Cohasset home special. Let's Connect.
