Downtown Charles City enjoys a busy holiday season

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Christmas has come and gone in Charles City. The New Year has arrived, decorations are coming down, and downtown businesses are reflecting on their holiday sales after a busy shopping season.

“We survived,” said John Eggena of JJ Toys after getting through the new business’ first full-fledged holiday season. “We had a lot of our regulars come in and a lot of new faces.”

Eggena says that the store’s sale of Lego sets saw a bump for the holiday and while many downtown shops haven’t run their final numbers yet, the general consensus is that it was a busy November and December.

“I do think sales were up,” said Darci Tracey, owner of Prologue Books and Wine as she waited for the UPS truck to deliver new stock to refill her shelves. “It was a really busy and fun holiday season.”

Adult fiction was a big seller for the bookstore, but plenty of locally purchased gifts made their way under the tree this year.

“I heard from a lot of people that they did their Christmas shopping in town this year,” said Tracey. “It was very successful and a wonderful collaboration between all of our stores.”

From sweaters at Cardigan to Hallmark ornaments from The Rustic Corner, a common refrain among the shops was that this year saw a healthy number of Christmas shoppers spreading their holiday budget across multiple stores.

“The one thing we heard a lot of was how many places to shop there were in Charles City,” said Tami Vetter, owner of The Rustic Corner.

“I saw a lot of people with shopping bags from around town,” said Ashley Fagerland, store manager at Cardigan.

Over at Main Street Drug, owner Cindy Uetz came into the holiday season with bells on. Namely, giant decorative bells that ended up being the highlight of the store’s holiday décor items this year.

“We restocked those like three times,” said Uetz.

The increase in foot-traffic is well appreciated by the small town shops, where even a few new faces can make a big difference.

“As a small business that’s really impactful,” said Danica Dejongoy of Birdie and Bo’s.

Now that Christmas is over, the downtown shops are enjoying a brief break before gearing up again for Valentine’s Day and other events that 2024 may bring.

“It was just a good overall season,” said Tracey.