Those who know me know I'm the biggest Christmas junkie. In my old house, I had 7 trees. My house…read morewas so lit up, you could probably see it from Mars. I love Christmas and everything that goes with it. So it's been on my list to see the holiday fare at Potters since I moved to Vancouver in 2017. This store's reputation preceded it, and I've been meaning to visit for 4 years!
After having visited this store now, my feelings are mixed. It's a humongous venue, and not only is it a cavernous, warehouse-like store inside, but it is also a working nursery, with gorgeous trees and garden fare outside for sale. And the interior designer in me really appreciated the interior displays, especially in the anteroom when you first enter the store. Here, they went all out, and it is a magical area, complete with tons of lights strung on gazebos and trellises and Victorian lampposts, with nostalgic, antique-like Christmas tree themes, and more. If one is looking for inspiration for holiday decorating, this is the place!
Inside, there are areas with gourmet foods, smaller stocking stuffers, tons of packets of flavored hot chocolate, There are aisles and aisles of ornaments. There are Christmas villages, holiday lights, knickknacks and tchotchkes and a huge room devoted to games and toys for kids. There's a big selection of humorous gifts for guys (think along the lines of gag gifts and frat-party-like fare). Lots of themed socks, lots of puzzles, lots of games.
Here's my beef with this store. Of course I expected prices here to be higher than at other places, as this is such a specialty store. But I expected the items to be either very unique or specialized, or of a higher quality than that at other places. Or both. Either of these qualities would justify higher sell-points for holiday merchandise or gourmet food fare. And, don't get me wrong, Potters DOES have some unique specialty items and some items are of higher quality. But at least half the merchandise sold here (and I'd venture to estimate a good 80%) is neither unique/specialty or higher quality. SO many ornaments I saw and inspected were of plastic or resin, made in China, or seen elsewhere. And the prices are at least double than what I've seen for comparable items elsewhere. Sometimes the prices were jacked up threefold. I know about ornaments and Christmas wrappings and lights, and the prices here were exorbitant.
Most telling is the fact that, after walking down every aisle and in every area of this store, and spending over an hour here, I left empty handed. I have never left a Christmas store empty handed. So....that speaks volumes. That said, I still enjoyed visiting this place and seeing some lovely holiday displays, getting some holiday ideas for entertaining, and surrounding myself with some holiday spirit!