Open house, Christmas in Kasson was over the top GREAT!

Whenever a business does something for the first time, there's a great chance of failure.

Dodge County Independent opened its doors to an open house at our new office location hoping that folks from Dodge County and Byron might show up to view our new office space, and celebrate Christmas in Kasson.

We had ordered lefsa and rosettes from the Kasson United Methodist Church women; three dozen cookies from Otto’s, Wayne Hendrickson made krumkake and Terry Eckstein had brought a box of Chocolate Shoppe chocolates to round out the treat menu.

We ordered two air pots of coffee from Smiling Moose and a container of hot chocolate.

Not knowing what kind of turnout we would have on this, our very first Christmas in Kasson at our new office location we were confident that we had ordered enough and thought we’d be taking leftovers home with us.

We had definitely underestimated the number of folks from Dodge County, Byron and points outside of the area. We had 139 guests registered for our various prize drawings and a guesstimate that there was another 20 or so who did not sign up for a prize.

We ran out of hot chocolate first.

Alisha Wells and my wife, Tricia served our guests. They quickly realized more of everything was needed to continue serving those who made the effort to stop by on a Saturday.

Karen Jorgensen had no idea how busy things would get, telling me on Monday morning that she thought she would have plenty of time to work on this week’s DCI between visitors. (She never sat at her workstation to accomplish any of her work.) She was kept busy shuffling cookies, lefsa and luscious chocolates to the folks.

Then our two air pots of coffee ran dry, with only squirts of coffee being urged out of the pots. I was able to brew two coffee pots of coffee via our office coffee maker to replenish coffee for our guests. (Scandinavians run on coffee.)

Carolyn Fey, our accountant from Carolyn’s Business Services, showed up before 10 a.m. and was there when our supply of cookies ran low. She made a dash to Hy-Vee to order dozens more Christmas treats.

Leftovers? No. Great memories? Yes. It was an event where folks sat around the office and visited with old and new friends.

We’re already planning the 2022 Dodge County Independent open house & Christmas in Kasson event.

After our last guests drifted off about 1:30 p.m., Wayne Hendrickson and Karen worked to sort through the folks who had registered for $25 gift cards from area businesses.

The winners are: Doug Leth, gift card from Kasson Liquor; Caleb Kern received a HyVee card; Mary Kobi took home a Houston’s gift card; Doug McMurdo’s name was drawn for a Smiling Moose card; Michelle McMurdo won the Hardware Hank gift certificate; Mathias K was the Variety Store card winner; Travis Hagedorn took home the County Seat Coffeehouse certificate; Char Edgar claimed the delicious Chocolate Shoppe gift certificate; Carol Steward was the Christmas Gnome winner; Folmer Carlsen (former owner of the Dodge County Independent) won a Buffet King gift certificate; Claire Field won a canvas photo print; and Lisa Lamp’s name was drawn for the second hockey print.