No Doubt
We spent a fair amount of our day working on shipping, which is the constant theme in the weeks prior to Christmas. Dozens of packages left our stores today with the furthermost destination of Vancouver, Washington. That is 2,018 miles away, or just around 30 hours of driving. Or for $46, UPS will deliver it in 48 hours. (Well, hopefully. 9 times out of 10.)
Here’s what else is going on:
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times: retail at the holidays isn’t for the faint of heart. The hours are long, the work is hard, and even though we have 99.9% delightful visitors into our stores, the .1% that aren’t delightful just feel more challenging. (Though I read today that a KFC employee was shot in St. Louis yesterday because the store had SOLD OUT OF CORN. So why am I even complaining?)
And maybe I’m just 99.9% more sensitive this time of year. Because the learning curve of two stores during the Christmas rush is real. (Though it really does make things easier overall. It’s just figuring out how to put the pieces together to make it easier that isn’t always easy.)
We are super excited to host our first ever Best of 2022 Epic Pie Tasting this Thursday. We are including the winner of each our 10 Epic Pie Tastings this year. Honestly, when Jason showed me the list, I didn’t even remember some of them (as if February of this year was an era ago). Holly is our resident pie tasting expert, so thankfully she’s pulling it all together for us. I’m just fetching the groceries. (And if you missed out, we opened December 30th for ticket purchases online. It’s the exact same as Thursday’s tasting, just two weeks later.)
Another upside of this time of year is that the baking schedule is always a surprise. We have pies in all sizes…jars, tarts, babies, and nine-inch. And in interesting quantities. Today at Nifong, someone ordered 28 tarts and another person ordered 45 babies and someone else ordered 10 nine inch. That’s significantly more interesting than the third week of January, I can promise.
And finally, don’t delay on ordering for Christmas. We haven’t set a close date, but I would suspicion it will happen this weekend. And the last day to order shipping is next Monday so that UPS can have 48 hours to cart it halfway across the country. Or 60 hours to combat the Amazon delivery air traffic, no doubt.
