The leaves are falling, the air is crisp, Mariah Carey’s voice is starting to fill the void, and somewhere, everywhere, children are being forced by their schools to put on a holiday concert for their families that totally won’t scar them for the rest of their lives.
It’s the holiday season! And I couldn’t care less.
Ok, that’s not completely true. I love fall and the way things start to cool down as we roll into the holiday months. As Amy and I have quickly discovered now that we're back on the east coast, I am a fall-loving, pumpkin-spice drinking, “let’s go leaf peeping” basic b*****. We drive by a tree that’s full of vibrant red and orange? You better believe I’m calling attention to it. We stop at a coffee shop that’s offering a pumpkin London fog latte? Amy is ordering it for me. It’s cold enough for a sweater but warm enough for just a sweater? Why yes, Raffy and I will be rocking our matching sweaters, thank you very much.
But OUTSIDE OF THAT (and pumpkin pie and strings of lights), I couldn’t care less about this time of year. Read: I couldn’t care less about the holidays.
Ok that’s probably not true, either. But I am tired of the holidays already.
Why? Because Amy and I have been thinking about our new holiday card collection since March of this year. That’s when we began finalizing which cards would make the cut. That’s when Amy started painting all of her cocktails and Santas and cheeses. And once July rolled around, as Operations Manager, I’ve had to pull, fold, and sleeve thousands of these cards. I've spent my days worrying if we have enough stock to complete an order with TWENTY Light the Meow-norah Box Sets. Worrying about telling Amy that, even though she just placed an order with our printers, we've only got a handful of 99 Problems left, along with an order that’s going to totally wipe us out. Worrying that, even though it legitimately seemed like we had enough Season's Readings on hand, we shipped like seven orders in a row that all included either singles or box sets of that card, and suddenly we're out now???
Have I ever mentione how tired we are?
Anyways, while all of that is still continually going on from Monday - Friday at the shop (with new Holiday hours), we will ALSO be out and about around New Hampshire for the next five weeks at holiday fairs and markets. We’re still new to the area, and people haven’t heard of us, or know that we exist in our little pocket of a shopping plaza that gets darker than a boot with Daylight Savings Time… Daylight Saving Time? So, we’re on a mission to get ourselves out in front of people and show them all that we have to offer.
That means we'll be subjecting ourselves to weekends full of the same six songs played ad nauseam until Christmas finally arrives, people start taking down their lights, Amy and I pretend that we haven’t already told each other our presents in October, and we get to close the shop for one week before we roll into the new year to start the process all over again.
So if you're in the area, come out and see us! Or stop by one of our pop-ups, like Penumbra Goffstown (pictured above). And if you're not in the area, you can always shop online. In addition to supporting Amy's dream career, you'll also be helping to replenish mine and Raffy’s sweater budget — and that's the kind of holiday spirit I can get behind.
