Going Going Almost Gone

A story of these times....

Years ago, we visited Cape Cod and went to a store in Hyannis (the largest village in the largest town on the Cape).  It was love at first shop.

Several years later, the Christmas Tree Shop opened a store where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State.  They actually started on Cape Cod (not the Hyannis store) back in the 1950's.  They were acquired by Bed, Bath and Beyond in 2003 and underwent a big expansion.

Yesterday I went to its going out of business sale.  Going, going, almost gone....

I wasn't surprised.  Bed, Bath and Beyond preceded them in closing.  But I really knew, a year or so after they changed ownership in 2020, that we were seeing the end of the road.

We've all been to going out of business sales.  In the past few years, the pace seems to have accelerated.  But this one was different.

We were faithful customers of the pre-2020 Christmas Tree Shop.  We knew we could find things there, not just for Christmas, but year round.  Our list included paper plates, cups, and napkins for various holidays and seasons, tablecloths, placemats, herbal teas, coffees, stocking stuffers for our son (a nut lover), an occasional rug or curtain, cake mixes, kitchen gadgets, gardening items, and the unsalted whole pistachio nuts I snacked on at work.  

Sometimes there were real finds, things that only turned up once, and those were some of my favorites.  Smoked salmon from Alaska.  Expensive-in-stores-but-not-here celebrity tomato sauce.

The Christmas Tree Shop was always a stop for us on Black Friday because you got a special coupon if you got there before 9am.

 But, under the new ownership, it was never the same.  We mainly stopped going when they were no longer selling many of the items we wanted, or when we found that the food items they had in the rapidly shrinking food area were now more expensive than at the supermarkets.  

Yet, we had been there a couple of weeks before they announced their closing, hoping we would find something we wanted.

The charm had disappeared.  So had most of our reasons for shopping there, alas.

Yesterday, I found I wasn't the only one who felt that way. As we looked at what remained, I heard snippets of conversation, shoppers talking to each other about how sad they were to lose the store, especially the store before the ownership change.  Not only that, but I overheard a couple of conversations between shoppers and employees where shoppers expressed their love for the store.

At the checkout, I told the clerk we would miss the store.  Her response:  she will miss the shoppers.  I must have looked surprised.  She said it was rare to find any shopper who wasn't friendly.

People were happy to be in that store.  Online isn't the same.

We need a lot more happiness in our daily lives.  I'm glad her employee experience was a good one.

More and more, we are forced online.  Online shopping seemed so great back when, but this is the unintended consequence.

Now, the Christmas Tree Shop moves onto the list I keep mentally of stores, both local and chain, that I miss, and will continue to miss.

Are your favorite brick and mortars going, going, almost gone where you live, too?