Winter Wonderland Has Finally Arrived
Most of us “Up North” are grinning from ear to ear now that snow is on the ground. It finally feels like the holidays are in the air, and the Cherry Republic staff are happily running from building to building with snowflakes swirling around them helping customers with their Holiday orders. Here’s a collection of photos with comments from our President from this week in the Republic. Enjoy!
Nothing better says the Holidays than our Glen Arbor retail campus all snowy and cozy at Christmas. If you can believe it, just 20 years ago, I used to heat our retail store and even the garage we shipped our Christmas orders by wood stove back then.
While Glen Arbor is quiet and cozy, Traverse City is bustling and festive, so for many, our TC store has become the place to get into the Holiday Spirit. I’ve been working at my laptop in the cafe area and it is fun to greet all the friendly customers.
We had a fun Holiday photo shoot recently. I tossed this in thinking that you might get a kick out of these smiling faces of some of Glen Arbor’s finest– Nora, Colebrook and Lydia.
The staff have set up a Christmas tree lot right here in the Grand Cafe. Of course, these are all for display only this year. Next year, maybe we will offer to Colebrook and Hawthorn the opportunity to set up a tree lot and actually sell the trees, I bet they would do it in a heartbeat. I have the funniest story about my experience selling Christmas trees, but that is for another time.
Here are some perfect stocking stuffers: cherry patches, cherry chocolate covered malt balls, and chocolate covered cherries. These are a lot more exciting than the chocolate kisses and apples that I got in my stocking.
Kletia Garies is our talented staff member in our Traverse City store. Between helping customers, she makes these great chalkboard scenes. You can see how good she is when you look at the shading of those gift boxes. They look real!
Steph and I have not helped our boys send out their letters to Santa yet. We are hoping that they will shrink down their desires to something more manageable than fish tanks and iPads and electric scooters.
We have Gift boxes stacked all over our store to make it easy for shoppers to get in and out rickety split. Look, there are even some parking spaces open right out in front.
Charlevoix has a big stack of our new winter tins. I like all the nice extra space this store has. This beautiful town is another great little municipality that showcases everything that is special about the holidays in northern Michigan.
This is the third version of hot cocoa that we’ve offered. I think we’ve hit the perfect blend of chocolate and cherry. It has been fun to offer several varieties of mugs to match. Together, they become a nice little gift for a teacher or dog groomer.
The TC store staff have done a great job of decorating this Christmas Tree with little cherry red ornaments and some CR gift boxes. And underneath are baskets of stocking stuffers.
Cherry Cheer and Boomer the Bear. A great match for our big Christmas Tree. Our Baker Sara, made these ornaments out of apple sauce and cinnamon!
Frankenmuth wine table. Where did that sculpture of Boomer the Bear come from? He is great. This is our first Holiday in Frankenmuth and we are loving being a part of this terrific community where every day seems a holiday.
Stockings have been hung with care. Looks like Boomer’s getting a head start seeing what’s in his stocking. Hey, Dawn (our TC staff manager), keep my boys out of those stockings!
Sara the Baker got creative and made some special gingerbread houses. That house in the back right is mine. To the left is Todd’s, our COO and co-owner, and in the center is Jason’s, our VP of Sales. Hey, stop by anytime for some holiday cheer from any of us at Cherry Republic.
