Old Fashion Christmas in Fancy Gap

December 5, 2009

“An Old Fashion Christmas in Fancy Gap”

11:00 A.M. – 9:00 P.M.

Come to the mountains and experience an “Old Fashion Christmas” in Fancy Gap, Virginia. This event is our kick off to the 75^th. Anniversary of the Parkway” in 2010. Visit our Blue Ridge HOST Visitor’s Center for information about the entire year’s festivities.

Enter to win “The Fanciest Ornament Contest”. $75.00 Cash Prize in Two Categories: (under 12 years of age) & (12 years & older). Bring handmade ornaments to any of the following shops by 5:00pm December 4^th. The Fancy Gap Dress Shop, Treasure Potts, Fancy Gap Designs, Crocketts Country Store or Treasure Potts II, An Artisan Gallery. Contest winners will be announced at Noon on Saturday December 5^th at the Pickin’ Porch.

Our retail stores will be open till 9:00 P.M. offering extended shopping hours for our visitors. Come early and enjoy a full day of shopping with carolers starting at 11:00 A.M. offering their special brand of Christmas Music on our Pickin’ Porch. The best carolers will be recognized with prizes for first and second place. Winners will be evaluated on period costumes, music presentation, and spirit.

AT 2:00 P.M. we will be offering “Story Telling” which is a tradition among mountain people. Afterwards, a contest will be held for contestants to tell their own stories representing the heritage or history of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Prizes will be offered for first and second place – in two age groups (5 to 12, 13 and older).

Free refreshments will be provided at most retail shops. Christmas candies, cookies, brownies, and other treats will be available along with hot drinks to warm your spirits. Of course, it wouldn’t be a perfect day without a visit from Santa to wish everyone a happy holiday season. We will also have hot chocolate and hot apple cider at our “Smores Party” for everyone.

A youth park will provide activities such as face paintings and a Christmas tree decorating party.

Anne Whisnant will be on site to sign her book Super Scenic Motorway – “A Blue Ridge Parkway History”. Her husband, David E. Whisnant, and she will also be signing their new children’s book – “When the Parkway Came”. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet and talk to the authors and get your copy of both books signed.

Also as a special treat, here at Crocketts Country Store, we will have the DVD of the Blue Ridge Parkway on Sale  for $9.99. This scenic ride of the Parkway DVD will make a perfect Christmas gift for everyone.

So be sure not to miss out on An Old Fashion Christmas at Fancy Gap,  December 5, 2009, from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. See you all there…….

The Final Countdown

Well, here we are to the final countdown, for our Christmas Open House. We are running around like chicken with our heads cut off.

We are busy unpacking items from our crafters, and getting them priced.

All of them are just as cute as can be. A lot of time and effort went in to making these items. We also have some great gift items for that special someone.

Also, we are going to be giving away 4 Gift Certificates, and each one has a $25.00 value. You won’t to miss out on this for this Holiday Season.

Hope to see each and everyone of you here this weekend, and join in on the fun…. 10 am – 5 pm  Saturday and Sunday. Also door prizes will be given along with refreshments and hot apple cider served.

Final Touches

The last couple of weeks have been real busy here at the store. We’ve been packing up the fall stock and unpacking and building displays for the upcoming Christmas Open House next Saturday and Sunday. Man it is a lot of work.

With getting all the trees decorated, and some of the small touches, time flies by before you know it.

We still have a lot of work yet to do before next weekend, like finishing the outdoor decorations, and doing a couple more Christmas trees, getting out some more of the Christmas stock, boy I am tried already.

As the weekend gets closer, we will be telling more of the plans going on. We hope everyone will attend and join in on the fun. We will be giving out special gifts randomly through out the Open House weekend, so you won’t want to miss a chance at that. Remember, Saturday and Sunday, the 14th and 15th.

Halloween Weekend Sale

We don’t want to scare everyone, but we have decided to do something different this year. Instead of having our Fall Sale after the Thanksgiving Holiday, we are going to jump the gun and have a 2 day sale only on Halloween weekend. So this coming Saturday and Sunday, here at Crocketts Country Store all fall merchandise will be reduced to 50% off. You don’t want to miss this Halloween Weekend Sale. Hope to see you all here.

Starting to Look and Feel like Fall

Well, here at the Gap, its starting to look and feel like Fall. The leaves are starting to change their colors, and the temps are starting to drop. Maybe even a chance for snow this coming Saturday.

We have decided that to be fair to our customers, that do not have the chance to visit our store, this year  that we would add some of our Fall items on our web site. The photos you will see here are just a small amount of the items we will be listing on the web site in the next few days. Many of these items, are handcrafted, by some of our friends, and I am sure that there will be a big interest in these items. I hope those of you not able to visit our store will check these items out, as supplies are limited, being they are handcrafted here in the USA.

And on another note, Betty has started tearing the store apart, trying to figure out how we will be decorating for our up coming Christmas Open House. We are talking to the Blue Ridge Chapel Baptist Church about attending our open house again, and maybe making soup, like they did with the apple butter at our fall open house. We will keep you advised on that. I don’t think we will be able to have the live music on the porch, due to the weather, might be to cold keeping the instruments in tune. But we will keep everyone updated on what is going on…… More to come later…..

Our Newest Line Just Arrived

We have just received our newest line from the “Black Crow Candle Co.” this week. We are sorry they did not arrive in time for our Fall Open House like we had hoped, but they are here at last.

These candles look and smell wonderful and they come in many different sizes to fit your needs and price range.

Not only in stock are the candles, but we also carry their reed diffusers, and sprays.

And to finish off this unique line, are the many different scents in tarts for all of you who love using your tart burners.

Now that the fall open house is over, in the next few weeks comes the work in bringing out the newest Christmas inventory, and building all the displays, and I know everyone is looking forward to this. As we start getting everything organized, we will be taking photos keeping everyone updated on our progress. So stay tuned for that………

Fall open house completed……

We would like to start out by thanking everyone who attended. It was perfect weather for our Fall Open House. Sorry to say, we were so busy I wasn’t able to take any photos except a couple, or do any video. The store was packed……

We would like to thank the members of the Blue Ridge Chapel Baptist Church, who started making the apple butter at 6:00 am Saturday morning. Thank you for the jar you gave us, its excellent, and I love apple butter. We hope you had a huge success, and again Thank You for your generous help in making our Fall Open House so special.

We would also like to thank Charles and Margaret from Treasure Potts across the street, for being so generous with the parking, as seen in the photo, both parking lots were packed all day….

We would also like to give a very special Thank You to Jim and Arlene Goulet. They traveled all the way from Lead Hill Ark. to autograph, and explain how they videoed the American Road Blue Ridge Parkway DVD, which has been a huge success in our store. Its one DVD you will want to have in your collection. They are in the works for their next video that I am sure will be just as good as the present DVD, if not better…… We will be adding the links for their web and blog sites in the near future, so everyone can learn what’s happening with American Road…….

And last, but not least, we want to thank Shari at Homespun and Primitives, for the beautiful fall display she crafted, to be given away for our drawing. It was absolutely gorgeous. And the winner was Santana Bell from Rural Retreat Va., we know you will be so happy with this gift, Congrats.

If we have forgotten and left anyone out, we are sorry, this last weekend has been a big blur, and now its time to start getting ready for our big Christmas Open House, Nov. 14th and 15th. If you thought the Fall Open House was spectacular, you haven’t seen anything yet….

We will keep you updated on everything going on for that one….. once I get some rest……