Stop to pet Snowball the resident black cat who wanders in and out and plops down by the register. You’re likely to spend an hour recalling favorite holidays underneath icicle and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and surrounded by baskets of plush reindeer, gingerbread-like ornaments that look good enough to eat, fairy-tale figurines and the coolest arrangement of Christmas village houses and figurines around.

The shop offers Department 56 Christmas villages like Sesame Street, Hot Wheels, Coca- Cola, Dickens Village and my favorite: an old-fashioned house with a glass dance hall you can see dancers twirling around inside. Check out the owner’s prized sculpture collections: the patchwork painted Jim Shore collection, the Willie Raye’ s quirky witch-in-a-go-cart and girl-riding-chicken garden figures and shelves full of a chorus of jolly-faced singing carolers that look like characters out of a Dicken’s Novel like a pig-tailed girls in plaid who comes bearing gifts.