The holidays will soon be here and Forest Avenue Antiques is offering customers a “sneak peek” at Christmas. With November still new, Santa Claus, his elves and some holiday greeting signage have already crept into the wall displays and cabineted contents in the shop at 2025 Forest in Great Bend, noted store owner Amber Smith.

While spring is usually considered the “season” for antiquers, the holidays are a time for antiques to be part of the gift-giving list. Antiques and collectibles make for unique gifts and early-bird shoppers are savvy to avoiding the Black Friday rush.

“We definitely go all out for Christmas,” Smith said. “We’re a place not only to find gifts, but a place to gather and visit.”

Year round, the store has local antiques and wares provided by local vendors, as well as original paintings and artistically repurposed items for a special look by artist Melanie Ryan.

The vendor list has expanded to include Alicia Spore, with a line of T-shirts at her Spore’s Sublimation Station, and Debby Poppeleiter.

The transition from fall to holiday ornamentation includes nostalgic Christmas items. “Antiques are nostalgic and Christmas is such a neat time because it’s family-centered, history-oriented and full of memories,” Smith said. “We see people that come in here to buy something that reminds them of a special time and they want to recreate that memory, have a piece of that. So, people really do connect with antiques during the holidays.

“We pride ourselves on locating items that have a piece of local history, and antiques have their own histories.”

Most all of wares in the store have in common the fact that they originated in Kansas, with most of the antiques and vintage items coming from the Golden Belt area, Smith said.

“We do our best to promote Kansas-made products,” Smith said. “A lot of the items in our store are local treasures. They are things that come from generations of people here in Kansas.”

Smith and her vendors believe in shopping local, because the benefits are wide-reaching, she said.

“The benefit of shopping local to us, obviously, is that it keeps our doors open,” she said. “When people stop in here and shop they are participating in preserving a part of our local history. People like it when the piece that they are buying has a local story that goes along with it.

“The benefit to the customer is that by shopping local, they are helping to keep everyone’s doors open. We’ve watched a number of local businesses close their doors, and with that goes the opportunity for last-minute success. In those moments when you are in a crunch, you might not be able to rely on Amazon to get something to your door by the time you need it. If you are in the habit of shopping local, those options would still be there.”

Shopping local benefits the specific stores, but it also has a benefit to the community in the big picture as well as the people who are doing the shopping, Smith noted. 

“There’s also the benefit of local connection, when the buyers and sellers know each other, have known each other and keep track of each other’s families and what they’re doing. You don’t get that feeling online or even in a big chain store.”