There’s a nursery/gift shop/very cool (but too expensive) place called Waterloo Gardens where I love to Christmas shop. It’s just up the road apiece, walkable distance but best to take a vehicle with cargo capacity.

Every year, Waterloo Gardens transforms the gift shop, green houses, nursery and numerous nooks and crannies into a true winter wonderland. Outside, you can find every tree, shrub and evergreenish thing bedecked with lights of prismatic colors. Squint and you see the aurora borealis — wide open, elves hiding. At Christmas-time, the inside heaves into alcoves of seasonal, cultural themes…Victorian, Italian, German, Pagan, country, sophisticated and others not easily named.

I’ve found the most amazing ornaments and decorative items in years past: velvet pomegranates, gravely grapefruits, demented snowmen sporting tartan scarves. But not this year. This year there were no nooks, alcoves, crannies or secret corners. No ethnic themes or oddball Santas and snowmen.

I spent two hours looking for the most amazing things and found uninspired displays of average offerings.

what happened?
did the buyer die?
did all the cool craftspeople move away?

ahwell….

end of an era

ho