WEST READING, Pa.- It\u2019s Christmas Eve, and across West Reading, the last-minute rush is on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came in to pick up a last-minute pickup of three rings for my granddaughters,\u201d said shopper Rita Ditsky.<\/p>\n
Inside shops like Tinsel and Twig, the day started early.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, a lot of shops are open for Christmas Eve so you can get in your last-minute stuff,\u201d said Cara Dzurek, owner of Tinsel and Twig. \u201cI\u2019ve already had people coming in since 9 a.m. So we\u2019re moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dzurek says this holiday season has been about people coming back out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Second Fridays have grown. We started Local Love, and it seems to be getting more people out on the Avenue and just kind of seeing what we have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
And what people are looking for this time of year is often something personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do handwriting, engraving. I can take a recipe your great-grandmother wrote and put it on a board,\u201d Dzurek said. \u201cLiterally right before you came in, I had a customer say her cousin cried when he got his. Stuff like that is really personal, I think that kind of makes the difference in Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The customers agree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I come in to pay, I see all the awesome stuff and I end up buying a bunch of stuff,\u201d said Bobby Stasko. \u201cThese really cool pocket knives. I want to get some scripture engraved on a wood handle for my nephew. And these sunglasses are awesome, I tried them on and I feel like I look like a movie star with them on.\u201d<\/p>\n
And for Kell Gibson, the gift isn\u2019t something in a bag, it\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot a little day off. Had to come get me some tacos because that\u2019s my favorite,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cMy favorite food is pizza, but tacos is top three, top five. That\u2019s my Christmas gift.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while the mood is relaxed, the impact is real.<\/p>\n
According to the National Retail Federation, this holiday shopping season is on track to exceed $1 trillion in total sales, a record pace that includes those last-minute shoppers heading out today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to wish everybody a merry Christmas and a happy new year,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cStay blessed, stay safe, protect your family and everything you\u2019ve got going on. I love y\u2019all and I want y\u2019all to love me too. It\u2019s nothing but love this way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST READING, Pa.- It\u2019s Christmas Eve, and across West Reading, the last-minute rush is on. \u201cI came in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,5527,22186,37591,28,736,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-71639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-eve","tag-favorite-food","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}