Good Tastings Blog: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

What an eventful two weeks it has been for us! The past two Saturdays have been full-on Watkins mode for me. My friend and associate Lori and I have worked two different vendor booths for two Saturdays in a row.

Last weekend we set up shop in the 24 degree weather at an outside booth for Centreville's Christmas on the Square. Now, I don't know about yall, but cold weather and I don't get along very well. My bones were aching out there in that freezing weather, but we toughed it out and had a pretty successful weekend. It was our first outdoor booth, so we gained some experience in putting up the EZ-Up tent.

Sorry, I have no pictures from last weekend because our fingers were too frozen to take a photo. No, just kidding. Sorta. Actually we both forgot our cameras, plus we had a steady stream of customers all day so there wasn't much time to take a picture anyway! But we had a really good time talking to customers and the other vendors. We found out more information about Tannehill Trade Days, which we are considering for next spring and fall.

Thanks so much to everyone braved the cold weather with us and stopped by our booth to chat! We really appreciate your warm welcome and business. Also a HUGE thank you to Ashley's Flowers and Gifts for letting us drop off the orders for pickup. We owe y'all one! Also a huge thank you for Lori's husband, Anthony, for making the delivery for us yesterday and my husband for helping us break down our booth. We really appreciate all of your help!

Yesterday we were scheduled for a booth at the Santa Shop at Meadowview Elementary school. We sold so much product at the Centreville show that we had to place an order on Monday to restock. We knew we'd be cutting it close with the order since it has been taking 5 business days to arrive. I kept my eye on the UPS online tracking and it was scheduled to arrive on Friday. I planned on spending Friday night pricing the inventory and getting ready for the show which started at 8 am Saturday morning.

Unfortunately when I arrived home on Friday my front porch was empty. No UPS boxes in sight. I checked the online tracking again and I had just missed them by TEN MINUTES. I was so upset. Immediately Lori and I went to work trying to track down the UPS man because we knew he would still be in the area. No luck. We were nearing hysteria when finally we settled on driving to the Customer Call center in Birmingham and picking up the shipment there later that night. So we headed down there at 6 pm, and after an hour of waiting in line with many other people who also missed their delivery men, we finally got my three boxes! What an ordeal!

We vowed to never cut it that close with a delivery ever again. I had to promise Lori's husband that I would bake him a cake in order to make up for dragging his wife all over town on a wild goose chase while he kept their two year old son at home. I told him I'd even use Watkins Double Strength Vanilla in the batter. :o)

Here is Lori at our booth at the Santa Shop this past weekend.

We had all sorts of great items for sale, along with dips and breads to sample and lotions to try. We offered the Salsa and Sour Cream dip, the Crab dip and the Bacon Cheddar dip. Once again, they flew off the shelf as fast as we could help people. Everyone really love our dips!

We had Chai Latte and Hot Cocoa mixes in nice mugs as another great gift. There were also lots of products pre-packaged and ready to go.

We sold assorted bread mixes in oven mitts. What a great instant gift for the baker of the family!

In Centreville we had a drawing for a Watkins Gift Certificate. Yesterday we had a drawing for this awesome baking themed basket chock full of Watkins goodies. Congratulations to both our lucky winners!

I still have a few of these items for sale if anyone is in need of some last minute Christmas gifts! Please let me know and I will be happy to make you a great deal!