(rhythmic music) - [Shirley] "You Oughta Know" celebrates the season in Cape May, New Jersey.

This time of year, the surf and sand take a back seat to the festive decor and the family-friendly events that bring visitors here for the holidays.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "You Oughta Know."

I'm Shirley Min coming to you from the Washington Street Mall in the heart of historic Cape May.

This picturesque town square is a winter wonderland this time of year.

From the festive lights that adorn the storefronts to the aroma of holiday treats in the air, visitors of all ages will find something to do.

(cheerful piano music) Thank you.

- [Cashier] You're welcome.

- A great way to see Cape May is to hop on one of their trolley tours.

So I have my ticket.

Let's go on the trolley.

(cheerful piano music continues) And who better to show me around town than the one and only Mrs. Claus?

- Hello there, Shirley.

How are you this evening?

- I'm doing great.

- That's wonderful and welcome to beautiful Cape May.

- Thank you.

- We actually call it our paradise here.

- It really is a paradise, especially this time of year.

- It is, with the beautiful lights.

I think the best way to see Cape May during the holiday season is to take one of the trolleys, like tonight, we're doing our holiday lights tour.

- Well the Victorian homes are beautiful, but then when they're decorated, it's just on another level.

I would love to see the inside of them.

- Well Shirley, we're soon approaching our first stop, which is the Emlen Physick Estate.

And that was completed in 1879 and it's an 18-room Victorian mansion built for Dr. Emlen Physick Jr.

Here we are now.

We're approaching the house beautifully decorated with the lights.

I'm sure you would enjoy seeing the inside of Dr. Physick's home.

(cordial music) - Hello, I'm Dr. Emlen Physick, and welcome to my home.

(cordial music continues) I was actually originally born in Philadelphia in 1855, but once I graduated the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1878, I decided to build this house.

It took about a year and it was completed in 1879.

The architect was another Philadelphian by the name of Mr. Frank Furnace, who also vacationed here in Cape May.

(cordial music continues) This is our formal parlor and here's our big Christmas tree right over here.

This became very popular in about 1900.

You may notice the candles.

We did not have electricity in this house, so it was someone's job to light every single candle on this tree.

Only on Christmas morning though.

As you can imagine, it was very dangerous.

You notice all the glass balls, also popular during the time period.

Now what's really interesting about the sitting room is we have the Christmas tree of my childhood.

I'm speaking of course of the 1850s and '60s.

It's quite smaller than the one we saw earlier.

And well, there were little presents underneath, but for the most part, the presidents were located on the tree, whether they be cookies, nuts, or even candy.

(cordial music continues) For dinner, we would often have, oh, roast turkey, oysters on the half shell because we are by the shore, as well as copious amounts of fruits and veggies and nuts.

(cordial music continues) We're going back into the staff area of the house.

Now I myself would rarely come back here.

We had as many as 10 staff members in this house.

And of course, during Christmas time, it was a fury of activity, what, with making all the food that I spoke of in the dining room on this large stove.

It actually came from Philadelphia in the 1890s and it was fired by coal.

We're moving to the second floor of the house and we actually have four rooms up here.

The first is the billard room, which has a 1905 aviator billard table.

The library housed a large collection of Dr Physick's books and across the hall was Dr. Physick's bedroom, which had indoor plumbing when it was built, which was very rare here in Cape May in 1879.

Now this is Mrs. Ralston's bedroom and she actually chose where this house was built and that's very unusual here in Cape May because this area was considered the country during the Victorian era, which is funny because we're about half a mile from downtown.

This is where all the working-class folks lived.

Now, Dr. Physick was the wealthiest year-round resident of Cape May, but his mother grew up in the working class, so she decided she would much rather be with her people.

That's who she was comfortable with.

Today, the Physick's Estate is operated by Cape May MAC, Museum of Arts and Cultures.

It's on four acres and it is the only Victorian house museum here in Cape May.

Now, Cape May has a ton of Victorian properties, but they are mainly bed and breakfasts and other places that people can stay so they can experience what it was like to be here in Victorian Cape May.

(cheerful music) - This is really one of my favorite houses in all of Cape May.

I have to say that 'cause I owned it for about 30 years and have been out of it for 20, but I live right behind it and I just love to walk by it.

The style of this is called Italianate.

Kinda looking at those manor houses in northern Italy with lots of land around them.

They featured very high ceilings, verandas wrapping around, belvederes on the top to let the heat out of the house.

So it took advantage of those natural breezes off the ocean.

It's all decorated for Christmas now, but that's kind of new.

When it was built, it was only used for seven weeks of the summer season.

It was a very, very short summer season.

But things like Christmas have helped us extend the tourist business well into that time of year.

We're not just a beach town anymore.

(cheerful music continues) When you enter this interior, you can see why we say in the 19th century, the decorating rule was: too much is not enough.

The layout of this house is very much like a private home.

Even though this was a men's club built in 1872.

Believe it or not, it cost only $8,000 to build the house and it was finished in three months.

My wife and I were in the United States Coast Guard and stationed here, but before we got out of service, we took one of those free flights to do Europe and had a great time staying in bed and breakfasts.

And when we got back to America we thought, you know, if Americans have so much fun going to B&Bs in Europe, why can't we have that experience here as well?

So we actually opened the first bed and breakfast in Cape May and there really weren't many around the country.

The number of B&Bs grew to like, about 80 in Cape May and 200,000 in the United States.

For us, it was just perfect.

You know, we could live in a mansion that we fell in love with and share it with a lot of people and they paid us for the experience.

It was really a fabulous way to run a house like this.

The B&B business helped save a lot of buildings.

They were really considered white elephants by most of the real estate people because of their size.

Cape May did such a great job of saving buildings that we have been declared a national historic landmark by the Department of Interior.

And every Saturday before Christmas, we open up many of the different houses, the owners decorate them to the nth degree and there'll be about 20 buildings open for the public.

And as you can see from in here, you know, a 14-foot Christmas tree is not something you can get in every house, but a perfect fit when you have 14-foot ceilings in here.

- [Shirley] On the grounds of the Physick's Estate is the Carroll Gallery, located inside the mansion's carriage house.

There, you'll feel like a child again when you set your sights on the old-fashioned Christmas exhibit.

And here to tell us about this Dickens village is Jean Barraclough.

Jean, thank you so much for having us here.

- Oh, thanks for coming.

We always like to have people come and see this.

- This village is stunning and it really is your baby.

- Oh, very much so.

This was donated to us in 2010, and around the same time, a friend of mine and I, we took a trip out to Lancaster and we visited another Christmas village that had a similar exhibit with houses and places, but the ceiling was all covered with garland and ornaments hanging on it.

And I thought, "What a great idea."

It's like it's under the Christmas tree and I thought that would be nice for this village, but I wanted something that looked more like a Christmas tree.

So I drew up the plans to come back and do something like this for our village.

- You really put your own spin on it.

How many pieces are here in this exhibit?

- [Jean] Well, we have 150 lighted buildings on the platform and probably 700 to a thousand little pieces.

- Oh my goodness.

Well how long does it take you to put all of this together?

- The best part of three weeks.

It takes a week to put the tree up by itself.

That's the biggest part of it is getting the tree up.

- Are there volunteers as well who help?

- We have volunteers who come in and they help with fluffing the garland when we first start 'cause it after this comes down at the end of the season, it all gets shoved into big plastic bags and has to come out and get all straightened out.

So you know, we have volunteers who help with that.

- [Shirley] How long does the exhibit stay up?

- It goes up the weekend before Thanksgiving, which coincides with our holiday preview weekend when we have our Christmas tree lighting here.

And it's up until the weekend after New Year's.

So about six weeks.

- And you assemble it every single year?

- Every year.

But then when you see it finished, it's so beautiful.

You know, it's worth it.

- It's worth it.

Thank you so much for putting in the effort, Jean.

This is beautiful and thank you so much for having me.

- Oh, thanks for coming.

- Happy holidays.

- Same to you.

(festive music) - [Shirley] Next, I'm off to The Virginia, a restored boutique hotel that is both modern and timeless.

It's also home to one of the best bars in town.

- Shirley, hi.

- Hi.

- I'm Curtis Bashaw.

- Nice to meet you.

- This is my hotel, The Virginia.

Welcome.

- [Shirley] It's beautiful.

Thank you for having me.

- [Curtis] Yeah.

This place dates to 1879.

And we've been running it for 35 years.

It's a wonderful little spot here in the middle of Cape May.

And come on into the living room.

- Okay.

You've played such a big part in transforming Cape May to what it is now.

Where did that drive come from to make Cape May what it is?

- Well, I've been coming to Cape May since I was two years old and watched the town through the years.

And when you have those summer traditions, you go back and you make your best memories.

So for me, as I became a young adult, these old buildings meant the world to me.

And it was just a fun idea to say, "Let's fix them up."

- Well, it's one thing to say, "Let's fix it up," and it's another thing to do what you have done in terms of rescuing, resuscitating some of these major iconic destinations.

- Well, Cape May had always been a hospitality town.

It fell asleep at the turn of the 20th century and was sort of forgotten.

There were some motels here and there were some B&Bs in the early '80s and I said, "Boy, no one's done both."

Taken the amenities of the motel and combined them into a historic building.

And The Virginia had been sitting here abandoned since 1983.

- Wow.

- So we picked it up for practically nothing in '86 and it took three years to get approvals, but we renovated it and opened it in 1989.

- What was it that you loved about this building?

- Hotels have such personalities.

I actually lived here in 1975 when it was just a boarding house for summer kids working in town.

And so to restore it over time and see people come back here year after year into the cozy living room, the porches in the summer are bustling, small little bar at the Ebbitt Room.

It was a big milestone project for the town and its renovation actually paved the way for us to be able to then say, "Okay, let's fix up Congress Hall."

- [Shirley] Yeah.

Which that place is stunning as well.

- These old buildings, they don't build them like that anymore, and so many old hotels have been lost through the years.

So to be able to put it back together and see how people enjoy it has been a real joy for me.

- Why are visitors making a point to come to The Virginia?

- Well first of all, the Ebbitt Room is an amazing dining room, the food is delicious.

The bar is a little jewel box and we have a team here that's been here a long time also, so they know our guests.

- Well thank you so much for having us here.

Let's go check out the Ebbitt Room.

- [Curtis] Yeah, let's do it.

You've got to meet me Leo and check out the bar.

- [Leo] Hey, Shirley.

How are you?

- Hi, Leo.

Good to see you.

What are you making?

- So I'm making our signature holiday cocktail.

It's called 25 Jackson.

It's a little twist on a tequila old-fashioned.

- I've never heard of tequila in an old-fashioned.

I like that.

How long have you been bartending here?

- [Leo] This will be 22 years.

- [Shirley] Wow.

- Yes, the time went by too fast.

But we're still making the best cocktails.

- [Shirley] Thank you.

You have a lot of regulars here?

- We do.

We do.

We have a lot of returning customers, people who are staying here in the hotel.

Some people have been staying here since day one.

We just celebrated our 35-year anniversary.

And you know, with the holiday season, everyone coming to see the decorations and great place.

- And there's another signature cocktail?

- Yes, another one of the greatest cocktails on the menu.

It's called Blackberry Smash.

We use our blackberry jam from the farm.

- And it's popular this time of year particularly.

And why is this such a destination for folks to come to?

- You know, people definitely have been building memories here.

Crazy story, I had the lady come in, she'd been staying with your parents here forever.

One day she came in, "Leo make me a non-alcoholic cocktail, I'm expecting and my parents doesn't know yet."

So she was able to tell her parents she expects a baby.

But I was the first one to find out.

- [Shirley] Wow.

- How crazy it is.

So it's kind of like building traditions, making memories.

- I love that.

And this is the Blackberry Smash.

- [Leo] So that's the Blackberry Smash, a nice and refreshing cocktail.

(festive music) - Mm.

Oh I like this.

- Thank you.

- Cheers.

Thank you.

(festive music continues) On our way to Cape May, we checked out two popular New Jersey Christmas destinations.

We visited Harbaugh Village and thought we wandered onto a movie set.

But our first stop was at the family-friendly farm at Johnson's Corner.

- My name's Gil Johnson.

I'm one of the owners here at Johnson's Corner Farm.

Our tagline here is "Planting seeds, harvesting memories."

What that means to us is, yes, we're a farm, we grow a lot of stuff, but in doing that, we want people to come out, make memories that they can share for generations to come.

(uplifting music) My grandparents bought the farm in 1953.

I'm third generation.

Through the years we've changed quite a bit.

In the early '60s, we started our first direct retail operation here at the corner of Church on Hartford Road.

On a wagon, we sold sweet corn and tomatoes.

That wagon grew to a shed, grew to a building.

Fast forward to today, we have a large farm market grocery store.

We have this beautiful building we're standing in right now, we built in 2021.

We're always looking to connect families to the farm and have people come out and make memorable experiences here at our farm here in Medford.

We are a true family business.

A lot of the family works here alongside me.

We have a lot of artwork around the property and all the artworks, original work done by my grandmother.

My grandmother passed away in 2020.

It was a tribute to her.

We like to always talk about her, spread her story, 'cause you know, her creative artistic spirit is really kind of what drove the business from being a wholesale operation into the agritourism that we are in today.

(festive music) We have a lot of supportive customers that have been coming to us since we've opened and we do our best to give back to the community too, partnering with non-profits such as UrbanPromise, Toys for Tots, and a lot of stuff throughout the year.

We started doing the holiday program about 12 years ago.

Our light show musical hayride starts right here at our farm market.

Once you get on, holiday music starts and the lights start flashing.

You take a nice trip around the farm and it's really like, an immersive experience.

Rides about 12 minutes long, but it's a great time and a lot of people make it their tradition every year to come out and do the wagon ride.

(festive music continues) We do a lot of different activities people can do here for our holiday program.

We have a full kitchen inside.

We have a bunch of lights all around our property.

We do fire pits, people can roast s'mores.

We have our Discovery Barnyard playground, our Lake Show on the Lake.

We float these Christmas trees out there and all the lights kind of flash to the music.

Where that lake is located is inside our animal farm.

We have donkeys, we have ponies, we have cows, goats, chickens, sheep, all the farm-favorite animals.

And when you go into the animal farm, we give you feeds so you can feed the animals and it's just really cool experience that a lot of people enjoy year after year.

We also have Santa Claus here.

People can come see him seven days a week.

We do breakfast with Santa on the weekends.

Our Santa Claus is really good.

I mean, he takes his time with everyone and really wants to give that kid the magical experience.

(festive music continues) A lot of local people come to the farm, but a lot of people also travel to come here.

We get a lot of people from Philly, North Jersey, different parts of Pennsylvania and people like to come out and spend their full day.

(festive music continues) Being born and raised here was a pretty cool experience.

You know, I always kind of took it for granted and now that I have kids myself and I can see things through their eyes, you know, I realized how special this place is and how my upbringing was so unique.

And just being able to open up the farm to other people and allow them to kind of get a little bit of that is, you know, a really cool thing that we can do here.

But we love what we do.

We really do.

- [Shirley] From the big screen to real life, "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" has made its way to Mullica Hill, New Jersey.

(festive music continues) - It all really started in Steve's house because he just loved "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."

It was his favorite Christmas movie.

- [Shirley] To keep his late father's memory alive, Steve Harbaugh turned his home into the over-the-top, highly decorated house from the 1989 movie.

- And it was his first Christmas without his father and he said, "You know what?

I'm gonna go for it.

I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna make a Griswold house."

- [Shirley] With folks flocking to his neighborhood to see the house, Steve decided to turn it into something even bigger.

(festive music continues) - [Melanie] He had looked all over for a new area, a new space to be able to grow and expand this idea.

And he found this property right here in Mullica Hill.

It was the perfect space and he knew that this is where we're gonna build the Harbaugh Village.

(upbeat music) - [Shirley] Today, Harbaugh Village is an amusement center open seasonally in the fall and winter.

And its philanthropic venture, George's House, accepts donations for families in need.

(upbeat music continues) (festive music) Our trip to Cape May would not be complete without a stop at Congress Hall.

This iconic hotel is a destination all year round, but around Christmas time, it's a must-see.

This truly is a winter wonderland.

(festive music continues) I'm here now with the vice president of Cape Resorts, which includes Congress Hall, Bob Haislip.

Bob, thanks so much for having me.

- It is our pleasure to have you here with us.

- The decorations in here are stunning and the decorating inside Congress Hall is a tradition.

Tell me about that.

- So it started 17 years ago with a tree lighting in the lobby and has just grown over the years to become all that is Winter Wonderland and beyond throughout the city.

- And talk to me about the history of Congress Hall.

Always been a family destination?

- It has for decades and decades.

We have families that are third generation coming back and bringing their kids.

- Oh wow.

- Christmas in particular, in a beach town, is typically very, very slow.

But we've created such magic here at Congress Hall that it has just grown and has expanded beyond the borders of the property.

- [Shirley] Outside, the Winter Wonderland is incredible.

Tell me about that.

- [Bob] We have a 37-foot Christmas tree.

We have a vintage carousel so you can have carousel rides and we also have Santa's train.

In addition, we have 21 vendors that are out there offering different goods for Christmas.

And of course, we have some food and beverage and drink.

And we are open Thursdays through Sundays.

Thursday and Friday is just afternoon and evening, Saturday, all day and Sunday, all day.

- I love all of the activities for the families.

It's a great opportunity to create and make some memories.

What is the overall feeling here during the holidays?

- It is like stepping into a holiday card.

Families come here because it has the spirit of Christmas.

It is like stepping back in time into just this special bubble, like a snow globe.

- That's perfect.

(laughs) I love that.

And you know, how long are all of the events and the festivities gonna be sticking around?

- So they'll be continuing until New Year's Eve.

So we run right up until our Glitter Ball that night.

- I love it.

You can't not get into the holiday spirit here.

That's for sure.

Bob, thank you so much for having me.

- It's such a pleasure to have you with us.

(festive music) - Well that's our show from Cape May.

From all of us here at "You Oughta Know," happy holidays.

(festive music continues) (festive music continues)