Annual Gift Tour scheduled, Celina Record

Businesses look forward to Celina Christmas Gift Tour Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Dec 3, 2015 More than a dozen Celina retailers and restaurants are gearing up for what they hope will be a busy – and profitable – day courtesy of the popular Christmas Gift Tour scheduled for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. The annual tour has sold out in previous years when it was a two-day event. It is sponsored by Celina Main Street and benefits the Celina Association of Renaissance Excellence (C.A.R.E.), an academic booster club that helps fund Celina ISD programs and scholarships. This year’s self-guided tour is set to begin for the first time with a catered brunch and coffee bar for ticketholders. Following the meal, participants will head out to collect free gifts as well as enjoy sales and other specials offered by local businesses participating in the event. “We’re hoping to just be packed,” said Kayla Boydston, manager of the Whimsy Finds consignment store on Celina’s downtown square. Each of the shop’s 24 vendors – which sell clothing, home décor items, candles and lotions, among others – were asked to provide free gifts for tour participants. This is the shop’s second year participating in the Gift Tour. “It’s a great event to support downtown Celina and to draw awareness to this area and to our shop and to our vendors,” Boydston said. Kelly Howell said she hopes the tour will help boost sales at her store, Uptown Vintage Market, that recently opened near City Hall. “Not a lot of people know that we’re here. They’re still discovering us,” she said of the store, which is filled with antique furniture and home décor as well as locally made artisan products such as candles and cookie mixes. The weather outside was frightful on Black Friday and likely kept some shoppers away, Howell said, which is why she decided to extend the sales she offered last weekend for the Gift Tour. Upon visiting Uptown Vintage Market, ticketholders will receive a set of wooden beverage coasters. “We want to be involved with anything that the city of Celina puts on,” Howell explained of her store’s participation in the tour, “especially things that involve the square.” Cynthia Harris, who owns Sunny Paige, an apparel, home décor and gift store on the square, calls the tour “a win-win for businesses as well as the community, because it (benefits) a really great cause and it also brings lots of people into your shops.” This year marks the third time the store has participated in the Gift Tour. It plans to offer cupcakes and hot chocolate to shoppers with tour tickets and present them with a surprise gift. “Last year it was a scarf and they loved it,” Harris recalled, “so we try … not to do the same thing every year.” Bridgette Bise, manager of Celina Main Street, said that in addition to providing a boost for local businesses, the Christmas Gift Tour serves as an opportunity for women to enjoy themselves during the harried holiday season. “There’s not a lot of activities for women to do socially that involve shopping and camaraderie with your friends and family,” she said. “This is the beginning of the Christmas season, and it gives women a chance to … have a great time in Celina.”