About Town Tuesdays {Tis the Season}

Tis the Season year round Christmas store

Welcome to week 2 of About Town Tuesdays.  Today, I am excited to introduce you to Tis the Season…Ohio’s largest year round Christmas store and located in my town, Berlin.

I so enjoy this time of year with the holidays just around the corner, snowflakes starting to fly, and possibly Christmas music starting to play (I proudly raise my hand to that last statement).  I knew I wanted to share this shop with you next.  Prepare for many photos as I share a little bit of the story behind Tis The Season.

View from second floor looking down

Tis the season boasts 3 floors of Christmas goodness, 22 rooms on the main floor and upstairs combined, and over 70 themed, decorated trees.

Santa Display

The rooms are filled with ornaments, garlands, collectibles, home decor…anything you can think of to create a beautiful home for the holidays in any theme and color you can imagine.

Upstairs Main Street

The upstairs portion of the store is set up to mimic the main street of a quaint winter town with lanterns lighting the way and the ceiling painted the color of Ohio at dusk.

The 10 upstairs rooms are filled to the brim with all things Christmas.  Stepping into each room brings a new feast for the eyes.

Every year, my daughters and I visit  Tis the Season and they each pick out a new ornament for our tree.  In year’s past, those ornaments have ranged from snowmen to nutcrackers to that funny little porcupine my youngest picked out one year.  This room below is always one of their favorites with all of the “sweet” themed ornaments.

Some of my daughters favorite ornaments each year.

You could easily spend hours in just the upstairs portion of the store alone!

Winter animal display

The fun continues on the main floor.  I was amazed to find out that just one designer creates all of the beautifully decorated trees…as I mentioned earlier at least 70 fully decorated trees throughout the store.

On the day that I sat down to talk with Jo Ann Hersberger, owner of Tis the Season, the tree below had just been newly decorated by 9am as a customer had purchased all of the decorations on the tree the previous day.

Newly decorated tree–aren’t those owls just precious!

Jo Ann shared a bit about the story behind Tis the Season during our chat last week.

Christmas Villages

Tis the Season opened in September of 1996.  I asked Jo Ann what led her to the decision to open a Christmas store.  She stated that she noticed that in a lot of popular tourist destinations there was always a great Christmas store.  She was unsure whether Berlin could sustain a Christmas store because the peek tourist season for our area runs from April-October.

I thought these little guys were so cute!

She started doing a bit of research on the cost of opening up a Christmas shop and soon realized it was quite a daunting price.  Before diving in to opening a Christmas store, she added a Christmas room to an existing business she owned to see what kind of interest there would be.

The Christmas items in the shop did very well.  This was very encouraging but Jo Ann was still unsure about making such a large investment.  In January of 1996, Jo Ann knew that there was a large wholesale Christmas show that takes place in March coming up. (I am imagining this as the Christmas equivalent of quilt market for us quilters!)

Jo Ann was talking with a friend about this event and she had been praying about making the decision to open a Christmas shop.  Her friend told her that she should ask God for a sign as to what to do.  Jo Ann asked “what kind of sign?”–her friend said “well, what about a rainbow?”  Jo Ann thought that a rainbow in January probably wasn’t going to happen but she went ahead and prayed about it.

Within two days, driving home, a beautiful, bright rainbow filled the sky.  Because this was before the days of cell phones and being able to document things so easily, Jo Ann was sure that no one would believe that she had actually seen this rainbow.  However, on the news that evening, the weatherman was talking about the rare January rainbow that was seen by many in Ohio that day. =)

This answer to prayer, led Jo Ann to attend the Christmas show and open Tis the Season only 9 months later, converting an existing building purchased in 1989.

Lower level of Tis the Season filled with pre-lit and unlit trees, nativities, and sooo many different strands of lights

I asked Jo Ann what draws people to Tis the Season.  She said they carry many collectible lines some of which are hard to find including: Charming Tails, Possible Dreams, Jim Shore, and Radko.  Additionally, people always comment about the “homey” feeling of the shop.

Tis the Season has some fun events planned in the upcoming weeks: Christmas on the Farm (a fun for the whole family event that includes the other shops in the area–including Plaid Sheep Company), visits from Santa, and an after Christmas sale.  You can read more about their events on their website as well as find address and hour information.

I hope you have enjoyed this peek into one of my favorite shops in my town!  I will be back tomorrow for the next Wondering Wednesdays post. =)