a festive holiday errand

I was looking for a particular type of decoration for our pink and sparkly holiday tree, to enhance the delightful movie-related theme that I started last year. I searched the Web and found out that the shipping would cost more than the item itself, and who knew when the item would arrive. I looked around Target the last time I was there, but no dice. I told myself that I was not going to spend a half-day driving around town looking for this decoration, not when I have plenty of other things I could be doing if I felt the need to shop. I am not much of a shopper. So I decided that I would pick one single place to go to find the item, and if that place didn't have it, I would just have to do without it.

But which place? I thought about my options. It was too tacky for Breed and Co., I don't do Wal-Mart, and I wasn't going near a mall. I decided to visit The Famous Christmas Store, which has been in the same place in Austin (off I-35) since I moved here in 1991. As you can see from the above photo, the outside of the store looks like it hasn't changed since the early Sixties. I had only ever been in the Famous Christmas Store once, about four years ago, in July. My mom and I were trying to find Christmas lights to hang on my back patio to light it up, and it was impossible to find Christmas lights at that time of year. We stopped at the Famous Christmas Store because the front door was open. Turned out that the store is not open at that time of the year, and the owners were doing some sort of clean-up or inventory, but they let us buy a few boxes of lights anyway. I couldn't see much of anything in the dark store, except to notice that it seemed awfully cramped and crowded, but I figured that was just stuff they were storing in the off-season.

Today I learned that the Famous Christmas Store really does have that much stuff crammed into it, although you can still navigate the narrow aisles pretty easily. The store is chock-full of Christmas decorations: fake trees, garlands, lights, tree skirts, and ornaments. I've been to Christmas-themed stores before, but I've still never seen so many ornaments in one place. Most of the ornaments were breakable -- gorgeous colored balls of every shape and size, more pickles than the corner grocery store, and an amazing variety of shapes and sizes. There were entire displays devoted to dogs, cats, Longhorns, teachers, general Texas stuff, birds, ballerinas ... I could go on and on.

But the store didn't let the huge inventory get in the way of fun Christmas decorations. I loved all the decorated trees, including an upside-down tree. The one covered with frost and huge icicles and white decorations reminded me of the trees in the Santa displays I saw as a little girl at Maison Blanche and D.H. Holmes. There were small trees dedicated to the University of Texas and A&M, side by side. And in a far corner, there was a gorgeous doll-sized mansion full of dancing and dining couples. The mansion wasn't displaying anything that was for sale in the store; it was there for no reason other than to look pretty. I'd love to know how long some of these things had been around. I wish I could have taken photos, but the store was full of signs forbidding cameras. You'll have to visit the place yourself, which I suppose is the point of not allowing cameras -- that, and the store was so full and so busy that a photographer would have been very much in the way.

I found what I needed and picked up a goofy gag ornament on clearance for my youngest brother, as well as a pretty Madeline ornament to give to one of my nieces. (Or maybe keep. We'll see.) But for the most part, the store was free of pop culture decorations: no Homer Simpson or SpongeBob SquarePants, and only a small rack half-filled with cheap paper Disney ornaments. There were a few corny internet-related ornaments in the teacher selection, but otherwise it could have been 1968 or 1982 inside the store, the decorations seemed so timeless.

I took one more photo outside of the store, trying to capture some of the decorated trees in the display window. I knew I'd get reflection from the window but figured it could be an interesting part of the picture, like the photos that Linda takes. But I don't have the same knack that Linda does: you can sort of see me in the left-hand corner, but the rest of the reflection is nothing but boring cars. Still, not bad for a first attempt.

Oh, the decoration I found and bought? After I trim the tree, I'll be happy to show you what it was. Posted at December 2, 2006 10:24 PM