Christmas shops in Maldon, Bright and Dubbo spread festive cheer all year
There is only a few days to go until the big day, but these regional stores are Christmas wonderlands year round. Find out why their owners are so passionate about the festive season, and how they remain viable after December 25.
FOR many of us, the Christmas season starts from December 1, or, if you’re really keen (or following the lead of supermarket shelf stackers) maybe some time in November.
But for these shop owners in Maldon, Bright and Dubbo, it is Christmas year round. And for each of them, the reactions from the young, and young at heart, walking into their Christmas wonderlands still brings them joy.
“They’re just amazed, and you never stop hearing when they walk through the door, they go ‘Wow!’ — and it’s little kids right through 90 year olds,” says Leonie Norris, from Maldon’s Vanilla Spice Christmas Shop.
Leonie opened her shop in central Victoria after her daughter started her own shop and cafe there.
Maldon had previously had a Christmas-theme store, which had closed, so Leonie set about resurrecting the concept.
“Lots of people were still talking about it, and that’s how it came about,” says Leonie, whose daughter has since moved to Townsville.
The shop is in the former Royal Hotel and Theatre, built in the 1850s, and used for entertainment for the miners in the gold rush.
Her range includes items from $1.95 up to about $2500 (an indoor life-size Santa, and outdoor decorations of a Santa sleigh pulled by kangaroos, are at the top end of the spectrum). But the stock includes indoor decorations, trees, tree decorations, lights, Christmas cards, wrapping paper, and gift ideas. There are also opportunities to get photos with Santa on the weekends up to Christmas. “That is rejigged this year but it is still very popular. Because we are in the old theatre of the pub — which had live stage shows and can-can girls back in the day — Santa sits on the stage and the kids sit on the top of the stairs in front of him. We have the 1.5m distance and all that sort of thing, but at least it’s not looking too disjointed.”
The Maldon Christmas Shop opened towards the latter months of 2010, so has just celebrated its 10th anniversary.
Meanwhile, Bright’s Country Heart and Home, another Christmas-themed shop, will mark its 20th birthday early next year.
Owner and manager Amanda Ralph and her husband Brett started the store as an “American country-style gift and homewares store”, with Christmas stock from September onwards.
“Then about seven years ago, most people knew us as ‘the Christmas shop in Bright’,” Amanda says.
“We thought, you know what, we love Christmas, it’s a passion of ours, it always has been. We’ve been married over 30 years and it’s something we’ve always collected and we thought, hang it, let’s just do Christmas all year and see what happens, and we haven’t looked back.”
While her stock includes a wide range from decorations and limited edition collectables, and something for every budget and taste, she says shoppers won’t find tinsel or Santa hats. The products she stocks are for keeps, with the idea of becoming heirlooms.
Amanda is of Austrian and German descent and says Christmas is a “huge part of my heritage and family”. Christmas meant baking through October and November, as well as celebrating Advent.
“It’s about family, it’s about realising the peace of this time of year, and how it just boils down to that little baby (Jesus),” she says.
“That’s what we want to do in our store. Make people feel that joy of family, of connection, of spending time with family and friends.”
Family was also a big influence on Carmel Powyer’s love of Christmas growing up in Dubbo in NSW.
“I have always been a lover of Christmas, and being from a big family, we had the most amazing Christmases,” she says. “It’s family ... it’s festive, it’s cheerful, and I just never want to let go of that Christmas spirit.”
Carmel says at one stage she would have 30 Christmas trees, all decorated according to different themes. “Outside you would think we were Grinches, but inside was totally amazing,” she says.
Carmel and her husband, Phil, started Dubbo Christmas Shop in 2014 in the upstairs space of their coffee shop.
That coffee shop business has since been sold, and the Christmas Shop has been at its current site in Bourke St for three years.
“The vibe of the shops — and it’s any Christmas shop you can go in because they are all just amazing — is how people are just in awe of everything. To me that is just the best, when they come in and go oh wow … it’s like they’ve stepped into another realm,” Carmel says.
Asked how shops dedicated to the festive season can be viable as a business, and among the answers the three women give include the dedication of Christmas collectors buying special pieces, tourists, Christmas in July demand, online shopping and lay-by shopping throughout the year.
They all have a social media presence — Bright’s Country Heart and Home’s page is followed by more than 17,000 people.
And being a Christmas shop all year round means that unlike other shops, which need to sell as much of their Christmas stock as possible before December 25, or soon after it, any unsold stock can just roll over.
This year Carmel says people have not only shopped earlier, they have also been putting their trees and lights up earlier. “These are not always people who decorate in big ways. These are just everyday families that have come in, had enough of COVID, they’re tired of the doom and gloom, it’s been a bugger of a year, want something positive and they’re putting their tree up because they want to create a good Christmas and end with a bang.”
Amanda, who has been affected by both bushfires and coronavirus this year, has noticed something similar.
“It’s that lead-up to Christmas that I think a lot of people are really embracing, and even more so after this year — they realise the connection with family, spending time together and really celebrating is so important when it is taken away from you like that,” she says.
Leonie has had a little elf visiting her recently in her shop — her two-year-old grandson, William. “Christmas is all about family and friends, and it’s just a special time,” she says.
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