Holiday Open House: An Alternative to Mall Madness

City side­walks, busy side­walks
Dressed in hol­i­day style
In the air
There’s a feel­ing of Christmas
– Silver Bells (1950)

Liz Borden and Carolyn Burtner amused them­selves by search­ing a Christmas tree for orna­ments depict­ing an infa­mous car­toon character.

“We’re going to de-Grinchify this tree,” Liz said.

The orna­ments were to be a gift to her son, who col­lects images of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

“The next per­son who comes in here, there won’t be any Grinches on the tree,” she said.

The two local women were vis­it­ing Arts on Main on Saturday for the sec­ond day of Downtown Winchester’s Holiday Open House. Among the items they looked at were den­im shoul­der bags made from women’s blue jeans that promi­nent­ly fea­tured hip pockets.

“It’s all per­son­al, and you know most of the artists,” Liz said, ref­er­enc­ing the hand­made gifts for sale at the local artists’ col­lec­tive on North Main.

“Everything’s a lit­tle unique, so you’ll have one of a kind instead of one just like every­body else,” Carolyn said.

Ginny Goppelt, one of the artists who vol­un­teered as a clerk and cashier Saturday morn­ing, said the shop had been bustling on Friday, when retail­ers were open until 8 p.m.

“We sold quite a bit, and I’m hop­ing that today will be even bet­ter,” she said.

The Christmas shop­ping sea­son is a make-or-break time for many small busi­ness­es, which offer an expe­ri­ence unlike that of online shop­ping or busy malls.

“They’re peo­ple that you know, and it’s friend­ly shop­ping,” said Whitney Leggett, Winchester’s down­town devel­op­ment direc­tor, who was buy­ing vin­tage items with her spouse, Chelsea Bright, at Birdie’s Attic Vendors Mall, one of the new­er busi­ness­es down­town. “Shop local is my type of thing,” Chelsea said. “I’d rather shop local and find unique gifts for fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends than go to a big retail store somewhere.”

Jennifer Morguson, who opened the shop Sept. 12 in what was once a Western Auto hard­ware store, said the antique ven­dors’ mall is a place to find unusu­al gifts, but not all of the vis­i­tors were gift-shopping.

“I go on walks every Saturday and come in here,” said one of her cus­tomers, Toni Endicott, who was admir­ing a large bronze bison head she had hap­pened upon.

“It’s not as over­whelm­ing as a big box store, and here there’s just a vari­ety” of gifts com­pared to oth­er retail­ers, said Lindsay Ensey of The HighSide Boutique at 11 S. Main St.

Many of the down­town shops, includ­ing Frames on Main, were offer­ing spe­cials to entice customers.

“If you buy the frame, you get the print for free—any print in house,” said Brenda Salyers, who works at the pic­ture fram­ing store.

For exam­ple, she showed an assort­ment of prints by Paul Sawyier, a Kentucky impres­sion­ist of the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th centuries.

“It’s about a hun­dred-dol­lar val­ue,” she said of one of the prints.

Salyers, who is also an artist, said the store on North Main Street frames many race­horse prints. 

Another spe­cial­ty is shad­ow box­es. She showed one with a tobac­co theme that con­tained an old tobac­co knife and spear and a twist of bur­ley. Another dis­played mem­o­ra­bil­ia owned by a train con­duc­tor that was found in a wall when own­ers were ren­o­vat­ing the Past Time Social Club and Cigar Lounge building.

“We love doing shad­ow box­es. It pre­serves mem­o­ries for gen­er­a­tions to come,” she remarked.

Hamilton Brooks Design was crowd­ed Saturday morn­ing with peo­ple shop­ping for Christmas-themed baby clothes, sweat­shirts, and oth­er items. The shop spe­cial­izes in embroi­dered apparel.

“It has been fan­tas­tic,” own­er Amanda Adams said. “It’s just so nice to see peo­ple come into town when we have an event, and we are just so hap­py to see every­one walk­ing around and shop­ping with us.”

With the mer­cury hov­er­ing around 60 degrees on Saturday, it was a good day for a stroll.

Kyle and Kim Dillow came all the way from Louisville for the open house and met Kim’s sis­ter, Kelli Sullivan, who came from Worthington in Eastern Kentucky to meet them.

“We fol­low Mason on Main on social media, and he men­tioned it on there, and so we thought we would check it out,” Kyle said. “It’s a fun Saturday.”

“We’re not look­ing for any­thing spe­cif­ic,” just brows­ing, Kim said.

They were, how­ev­er, inter­est­ed in lunch.

Several down­town restau­rants offered din­ing and drink­ing options. The Hall on Main Coffee and Café, one of the main spon­sors of the open house along with High Speed Collectibles, fea­tured cheese­burg­ers with pas­ta sal­ad and pota­to chips. 

Mount Folly Mercantile, which spe­cial­izes in grass-fed beef from Laura Freeman’s farm, local­ly dis­tilled whiskey, and cannabis prod­ucts such as CBD oil, was offer­ing shots of cin­na­mon-fla­vored whiskey mixed with rum and Bailey’s Irish cream.

Thee Cake Carpenter was sell­ing cheese­cake, yel­low cake with caramel icing, but­ter cook­ies, Grinch cook­ies, but­ter­fly lemon­ade fla­vored with laven­der, and oth­er drinks and desserts.

“We were real­ly busy yes­ter­day,” Sydney Carpenter, own­er of the new cake shop, said. “I didn’t have much down­time at all. We sold out of every­thing, so I was here ear­ly,” bak­ing more fresh treats to fill the bare dis­plays. She had start­ed around eight that morn­ing after hav­ing worked until 11 or so the night before.

“It seems like a real­ly good crowd,” she said, despite the paving of Main Street on Friday while the event was hap­pen­ing. Construction work­ers paint­ed diag­o­nal park­ing stripes on the low­er, west side of the street, but peo­ple weren’t allowed to use them yet, so park­ing was a prob­lem for some. But when the mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar Main Street recon­struc­tion is fin­ished in a few weeks, it’s going to be bet­ter than it was before, she said.

The High Side has new side­walks, hand­i­capped ramps, black met­al rails, and ramps. The old steps are gone, along with the par­al­lel park­ing spaces on the east side of the street. 

Clare Sipple, who lives near down­town and walks to the area a cou­ple of times a week, liked the new design.

“It’ll real­ly look nice when they’ve got­ten it done,” she said. “I look for­ward to the Christmas parade this year.”

The Allen Company’s goal is to fin­ish the project before the “Storybook Christmas” parade and tree light­ing sched­uled for Dec. 6.

Leggett said the Holiday Open House has been hap­pen­ing for at least a decade, and it’s coör­di­nat­ed by the down­town busi­ness­es that form a close-knit community.

“It’s just a great time to sup­port your neigh­bors,” she said.