Never-Ending Holiday
Gladewater store celebrates Christmas year round
T
here are legends behind Christmas ornaments and Don Greenwood knows nearly all of them. For 22 years, Greenwood has owned and operated Greenwood’s Year ’Round Christmas Store in downtown Gladewater. At the store, it’s Christmas all year as Greenwood specializes in holiday ornaments made of glass as well as other decorations. Greenwood sells holiday decorations from a variety of vendors, some of which are rare in East Texas. “You can go to Dallas or Houston or Chicago and you may find stores that are larger (in terms of square footage) than ours but you will not find the selection that we have anywhere else,” Greenwood said. “You will not find a Christmas store with a selection as good as ours.” Greenwood’s downtown Gladewater store is filled from floor to ceiling, back to front with thousands of Christmas
ornaments and other holiday decorations, such as Jim Shore figurines and Department 56 holiday villages. His personal love for holiday decorations started decades ago when he and his wife, Jan, married. Christmas wasn’t a special time in Greenwood’s family when he was growing up. His father passed away when he was 9 and he can recall celebrating Christmas prior to that. “Daddy liked Christmas,” he said. “I’ve got a tree at the house decorated just like the ones when I was a kid, with the same type of ornaments.” After his father passed away, his mother remarried. The family didn’t celebrate Christmas after that. When Greenwood married himself, his wife wanted to celebrate Christmas – as did their children. So they started
| CONT. ON PG. 35
November/December 2021 | etxview.com
33