You're right. I do remember seeing the Polar Express Santa at the store.

He was located on the far right end of the ornament display and didn't really stick out.

I got to my local store about 45 minutes after it opened. Having just moved here this summer from out of state I wasn't sure what to expect but it was really very nice. There was a table set up with coffee, cider, cookies, crackers and a cheese ball. There were several employees pointing out the ornaments and where the limiteds were etc. This was way more involvement than I was used to seeing.

I got everything I was looking for, mostly the toys(Chatty Cathy, Rock'em Sock'em, See'N Say etc.) The only limited I was looking for was the Crayola snowman but he was all gone. That's OK, I can live without him.

I met the store owner and her dad. They were very nice and we chatted for a few minutes. She told me that she will do pre-orders and hold anything except the limiteds because she gets so few of them. None of the stores I previously went to would hold anything so this is an improvement! I'll just have to be at the store when it opens if I want any limiteds. This shouldn't be too hard, I used to have a choice of 6-8 stores in a 20 mile radius, this is the only Hallmark store within 50 miles so I'll be doing all my Premieres, Debuts etc here.

Best thing about Debut? There was a husband/wife team taking names of people interested in forming a local club! I had asked at several stores I previously went to and never got any interested responses to starting a club, so yippee! I hope it works out.

Karen

I have to give a SHOUT OUT to Kerchner's Gold Crown Hallmark in Canton, Ohio for providing the Hallmark Open House for us. We had the thrill of attending our grand-nephew's wedding this past weekend in Pittsburgh. We were out of town from Fri until late Sunday evening. The week prior the great staff of Kerchner's let us pick out the purchases we wanted for the weekend, I left our GC certificates, a credit card number and they rang it all up during the weekend so we wouldn't miss out on all the extra points, etc. Now that's the way to run a HM GC store !!! Today Sandy and I went to the store and everything was packed up and ready. The even saved a few ornament storage boxes in case we wanted them. Sorry I'm a bit long-winded. Thanks Alan

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"a retired teacher who's still learning"