Year-Round Christmast Stores

Going All Out (From page 58)

ton of it — in tones from petal to fuchsia — along with other whimsical hues like lavender and bright green. For traditionalists, 2021 saw a lot of “elegant” white and gold.

All 30,000 square feet of Holiday Warehouse are “covered with Christmas,” Intrator said. Trees are the best-selling item; Texans favor the frosted look, “with snow we’re probably not going to get down here.” The store works with a factory to custom design trees and garlands for that Texan oversized look. “We’ve got really big houses around here, so you can’t have a two-inch-wide garland,” Intrator pointed out, noting that warehouse garlands run a full two feet wide.

The store also emphasizes high quality LED lighting, which has improved to rival the look of incandescents. As Intrator has noted: “The number one thing people get upset about is if the lights on the tree don’t work.”

Merchandise is arranged by themes, from Old World to psychedelic, and employees are happy to work individually with customers to design their holiday schemes. “Whether they buy $60,000 worth of stuff or a $6 ornament, every customer has to be treated the same, with that personal touch,” Intrator affirmed.

With nearly a decade in business, Holiday Warehouse has clearly figured out what works. The proof: Nearly everything sells out by early winter. “Thanksgiving used to be the kickoff,” observed Intrator. “Now people want trees by August.”

The retail scene is less frenetic in Socorro, N.M., where holiday décor has declined as a category at The Christmas Store. Owner Lauren Finley keeps the name because it’s known in the community, although much of her business has shifted to flowers.

Finley said the pandemic took a heavy toll on her retail community, including the personal connection that was once a hallmark of her customer service. “Now I’m doing most of my business over the phone or on the website,” she said. “People are spending more, but we don’t see them as often.” Ornaments remain the top holiday seller, especially those with a southwestern theme like cowboys or handmade from stained glass.

Customers at The Holiday Shoppe in Sausalito also favor merchandise with a local theme. “Anything with San Francisco or Sausalito on it does really well,” said Manager Hengameh Rafi i. Best-selling ornaments feature the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, or sailboats on Sausalito Bay. Many are hand-painted figurines, wooden carvings or glass balls.

Rafii often helps collectors who’ve come in for popular lines like Lenox or Christopher Radko. “We’ll go into depth, show them everything we have,” she explained of her service philosophy. “Collectors always want to know what’s new.”

At Jule Hus in Solvang, a Danish cultural mecca in California’s Central Valley, shoppers are drawn to Christmas tradition. “Our bread and butter is Old World Christmas, with an emphasis on European and Scandinavian style,” said David Watts , whose parents started the business in 1967. Jule Hus is itself a family tradition; Watts’ grandparents, as well as his own sons, have worked in the store, which he took over with his wife, Lauren, 30 years ago.

Customer favorites include molded glass ornaments from Italy, Czechia and Poland, as well as German nutcrackers and advent calendars and Scandinavian candle holders and candles. “It’s a lot of things you don’t find elsewhere,” Watts observed. The family tried importing European Christmas foods over the years, but found that mainstream retailers have in- creasingly discovered that niche — and, with bulk orders, can sell it for less.

Watts doesn’t believe in either pre-holiday markups or post-holiday sales, so he rotates slower merchandise until it finally sells. It’s all part of his philosophy of treating patrons the way they the way he would like to be treated — and making sure his store feels like a