One of my very, very, very best friends came into town on Saturday for our Annual (this was technically the first year, but it was so fabulous, we feel confident in saying annual) Saturday-Before-Thanksgiving Local Shopping Marathon.
Sally and I met in college. She lived in the dorm room next to me our Freshmen year and the rest is history. She and the two other girls we lived with throughout college have been super close ever since. We have shared so many belly laughs and tears in the many years since that first year, it’s hard to remember my life before Sally.
Our friendship has seamlessly moved into this phase of “having children” and although we talk frequently throughout the week, these conversations are often cut short due to our children being, well, “children.” In fact just a few weeks ago, after hanging up abruptly, Sal called back to say: “Sorry I had to hang up so fast – Katie (her 2 year-old and my proud namesake) was opening the door of the car while I was on the highway.”
You get the idea.
We hardly ever get uninterrupted time just the two of us so we planned long ago to take a Saturday before Christmas without our husbands or kiddos. We mapped out our day with the intent of sticking with the many wonderful local stores here in Columbus. As expected, we had a blast and got some great, unique Christmas gifts and even a few things for ourselves.
If you are in the Columbus area, I encourage you to think about shopping local this Christmas. I love the Gap as much as the next girl, but shopping local is much more fun and it puts money right back into our economy. The receivers of your gifts will thank you.
Here’s the run down on the places we hit on Saturday:
We started off by taking a whirl through the Craftin Outlaws show at the Gateway Film Center. This ain’t your mama’s graft show. There were no goose costumes or teddy bear figurines. Just super cool local artists. Sal and I both scored some great things here and met some great people. We’ll definitely be hitting this again next year. It was a great way to start out our day.
Then we hit a few of my favorites in the Short North. Bink Davies and my favorite Short North store to window shop and dream, Ladybird. I am still semi-regretting not buying the coat I looked at for like 20 minutes from Ladybird. I am hoping I might be able to snag it on sale after Thanksgiving.
Even though our tummies were rumbling and more than tempted by all the yummies in the Short North, we pressed on to a Dublin fav … The Morgan House. It’s kind of a Christmas must. Although I did see a goose costume there, it is so fun to walk through their endless rooms of Christmas fun. We got quite a few good stocking stuffers there and ate a delicious lunch.
Refueled and ready to go, we headed over the river to adorable Downtown Powell. I love all of the little antique stores in Powell. They are all very organized and their selections are great. My favorite is A Paris Flea Market. After antiquing it a bit, we made a quick stop into The Candle Lab and then ended the day at my favorite place in Columbus to buy children’s gift’s, Cute As a Button. I found some adorable things this trip for the girls. It never disappoints.
We had some pretty grand plans of making our day last into the night, but with Sally being 8-months pregnant and me being … well just tired, we called it an early night. Satisfied and chatted – out, the day was a success.
Till next year!
Oh and for those of you who don’t know what a Goose Costume is, here you go:
