topic Re: Christmas Open House in Holiday

Christmas Open House

Sakuya — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:17:22 GMT

I have three different Christmas Open Houses to attend three days in a row for three different stores. It still seems odd it is already that time of year. It is always exciting to see how each store will decorate and what they have to offer.

Re: Christmas Open House

Estellee — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:42:20 GMT

That sounds like fun, I wish we could be done with Halloween and Thanksgiving first LOL

Re: Christmas Open House

rockygems123 — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 12:16:53 GMT

@Sakuya

Sounds like fun! What kind of products housewares fashions?

Not sure if our area does that maybe Talbots will?

Re: Christmas Open House

Estellee — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 12:36:38 GMT

What stores do open houses, can anyone attend @Sakuya

Re: Christmas Open House

SactoSue — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 16:42:12 GMT

I went to my local, very good, garden center to get some winter cabbages to plant on the patio.

They were putting up their interior decorated Christmas trees for their annual Christmas event. Lots of large artificial trees and garlands with a huge number of ornaments and decor pieces. Probably most are from the usual asian-made big decoration lines like Raz Imports, Mr Christmas, and such, but they also have really nice local handicrafts and unsual pieces.

I inquired about when they would be available for sale and she said. "you can buy anything right now if you want"

I was soooooooo sorely tempted. But did not buy any.

Interestingly, one of the most beautiful trees was white and had a seashore theme and was very very pretty. Being in a mountain area, it doesn't work for me, but the tree was nice and light and bright. They stayed away from that tree-stuffed-with picks or ribbons, or hydrangeas or garlands or feathers or whatever is currently en vogue. Franklyk, they were all so refreshing to see without the extra stuff.

Re: Christmas Open House

SactoSue — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 17:02:19 GMT

I really still want to enjoy these last sunny days of autumn and am going to try to not give in to Christmas future.

I just want to see what is offered and how she does the settings and decor. I find that I miss out on some good cues by not actually watching the shows.

Re: Christmas Open House

Sakuya — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:10:05 GMT

@Estellee - The three open houses are all the first week of November. Two of them are at garden centers that also do home decor. The third is a little boutique that sells new items and antiques that she finds around the country.

I do not know the dates yet for other open houses I usually attend.

The bigger nice garden centers that also do home decor are the most fun. I find things there I don't see elsewhere. They also have beautiful picks, garlands, ribbon, etc. It is exciting to walk in and see the store all decked out for each season.

Hallmark's Ornament Debut starts this weekend. It is their second big drop of ornaments. The first batch comes out in July and the second in October.

I stopped by Home Goods today and the Christmas items are showing up. They have a good early assortment of Shiny Brites if anyone likes the retro style ornaments. A lot of Halloween on clearance, but not everything.

Re: Christmas Open House

SactoSue — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:16:38 GMT

Oh I LOVE Shiny Brites.

That must be a hold-over from my mother's Christopher Radko phase. I do prefer to decorate a tree with the old-fashioned shiny and interesting type of ornaments and especially those Christopher Radko garlands. Us kids still argue over who got the 30 year old Polish ornaments she treasured. It wasn't me, but the other siblings will not fess up to who has them.

I also love the Halloween ornaments that Shiny Brites does. I have my mother's black "feather" tree that is fun to put these colorful ornaments.

Re: Christmas Open House

Sakuya — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:22:39 GMT

@SactiSue - I have a Radko black feather Halloween tree with a pumpkin base that I hang the original Halloween Radkos on - meaning when he owned the company. I also have Shiny Brite Halloween ornaments.

Maybe you could pop in for visits with your siblings this Christmas season so you can spend time together as well as see their lovely decorations.

Re: Christmas Open House

SactoSue — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:31:23 GMT

I'm a lot less nervous about using the Shiny Brites than pulling out those original Radko pieces.

I think Shiny Brites has done a great job of providing the same charm at a decent price.

Re: Christmas Open House

Estellee — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 20:56:50 GMT

Those open houses sound great, I havn't heard of any in my area yet but it sounds like there are quite a few treasures waiting to be found. @SactoSue @Sakuya

Re: Christmas Open House

Marsha2003 — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 22:22:30 GMT

I attended my local garden center's big Christmas open house last week. I had stopped going for the last few years because they no longer offered the unusual decorations that they did once upon a time. While I enjoyed walking around to see the various displays, once again I was disappointed at the lack of special choices. They didn't offer anything that you can't find from other vendors.

I think the original owner must have died or sold out because he traveled to the European Christmas shows and brought back the most wonderful decorations. Now, the offerings are from the same vendors like RAZ that you find elsewhere.

Re: Christmas Open House

SactoSue — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 18:21:31 GMT

I think it's interesting you bring this up, @Marsha2003

If you are a business that relies on holiday shopping income, it must be tempting to just order your Christmas Shop inventory from a catalog of hundreds of mass-produced items of brand names that you can find on Amazon, on numerous holiday vendor sites, and in big box stores.

It takes something special for an owner to personally shop for unique items. I agree it makes all the difference. I do find my locally-owned and established garden center has unique hand-crafted quality items and small art pieces that make it all worthwhile.

I was doing some fall garden shopping and I saw the same Green Grinch tree in the big box stores, in my local garden center, and on Amazon. It didn't make me feel it was very special, nor did it make me want to buy any of the branded ornaments.