Local businesses reflect on busy holidays and look ahead to the new year

Dec. 26—LIMA — Local businesses have been dealing with the hustle and, at times, inconsistency of the holiday season.

Jennifer Brogee, owner of The Meeting Place on Market, said that traffic in the coffee shop is either heavy or light depending on the day during December, but that it is nothing they are unaccustomed to.

"It's fairly routine," she said. "I think we were very strong with our online sales so those had us hopping, but walk-in sales were about the same as last year. But since e-commerce took off and the pandemic started, the entire month of November has been Black Friday."

Miranda Oden, co-owner of Leaf and Luxe, said that the community has shown a great response during the holiday season.

"It's been a busy Christmas season that started with Black Friday," she said. "It went on through that week and then Dec. 2 was the downtown holiday festival which was a really good day for us. It kept going steady from there right up until last Saturday."

For the shop that sells plants for home decor and gifts, it is no surprise that during the Christmas season, with its traditions of displaying trees, wreaths and poinsettias, Leaf and Luxe would see an influx of business.

"A lot of people were more into plant accessories," she said. "We always do great with plants, obviously, but the accessories and care items we had seemed to go really well. We also sold a lot of Christmas Cactus and other seasonal plants like poinsettias, so it was really good."

Brogee said The Meeting Place sold a lot of coffee and cocoa for home use, appropriately enough for the holidays.

"Our Eggnog Latte has been very popular and our Frosty Favorite and Jack Frost java coffee that can be brewed at home are really popular," she said. "In terms of gifts, our coffee sets with sample sizes of gourmet flavors are also really popular."

The Meeting Place is usually hard at work shipping out the items, which can number in the hundreds of boxes on a given day.

"And we do that all individually, by hand," she said. "They're all custom-made gift boxes, so we're tired. But this week is kind of just a relaxing week for us all to rest and enjoy the holiday season. Retail workers don't really get to start Christmas until Christmas Eve because of how busy they are."

For a business just in its ninth month, Oden said that it has been great to see the support from customers looking to buy plants, especially when they come from places as far away as Germany and Argentina.

"We've just had incredible community support and we could not be happier," she said. "We love meeting all the people and seeing regular people come in and make friends. The plant community is pretty amazing and everybody has been very supportive."

The store is closed right now, but employees are still working by visiting greenhouses to recover new plants.

"We're pretty excited about having some more uncommon things to offer," Oden said. "We have only uncommon plants available and I think we do well with that so we're looking forward to that and doing some more workshops."

And Brogee said the festivity of the season in downtown Lima is not lost on her or her business.

"We really enjoy the downtown area with our customers and fellow businesses and it's fun and festive to see the decorations," she said. "One of our customers decorated our front window and an employee's family decorated a different window with a train set so we just really enjoy all the holiday decorations and collaborations with customers and other businesses."

To stay up to date on Leaf and Luxe, visit the store's Facebook page.

For more information on The Meeting Place on Market, visit the shop's website.

Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.