Dear Gentle Reader,

Finally! This weekend is the weekend that Donald Davis will be here, and we are so excited to cap off the year with the appearance of our favorite storyteller. Saturday’s event is sold out, but a few tickets remain for Sunday at 2pm. All the money from ticket sales goes to CORA, the Chatham County foodbank. We are so greatful to Donald, the recipient of both the Circle of Excellence and the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Storytelling Network, for donating his time and efforts to help us feed Chatham County. If you have already purchased a ticket, please bring canned goods for CORA and/ or gently used childrens books for Chatham Reads.

While we are on the subject of need… earlier this fall a catastrophic hurricane roared through Western North Carolina. In the wake of Helene, the western part of the state is working on cleaning up and rebuilding. These efforts will be going on for quite some time. Western North Carolina needs to know that we have not forgotten them. If you are interested in helping, check out UNC’s Tressie McMillan Cottom‘s thoughts in her New York Times column, Or check out these worthy local groups suggested to us by Ashevillians… Manna Food Bank, Brother Wolf Animal Rescue(they have a 4x match going), Arts AVL, and BeLoved.

STORE HOURS! Forgive us if this is a little higgidy piggidy.

This week (December 18th-22nd), McIntyre’s is open Wednesday through Friday from 10am-7pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm.

Next week (December 23rd-28th), we ARE OPEN Monday (10-5) and Tuesday (10-4). We will be closed the 25th. Then open Thursday the 26th (sorry no storytime) through Sunday (10am-5pm).

The Usual Elves,

Pete, Johanna, Sarah, Tyler, Beth, Amy and Keebe