The Christmas sales campaign is getting into its stride at garden centres across the country as Santa clocks up the miles at grotto openings and special events draw customers in.
Dobbies at Peterborough stage a special ladies’ night next Thursday (15 November), with admission ticket proceeds going to charity. For £1 a head, the ladies will enjoy pampering taster sessions and a glass of champagne as well as shopping, between 5 and 8pm.
The money raised will go to CLIC Sargent, the charity for young people with cancer.
At Stephen Smith’s Garden Centre at Harden, Yorkshire, Keighley Lions are running Santa’s Grotto in ther six weekends up to Chgristmas. Santa is due toi arrive today, after leaving the Lingbob pub in Wilsden and proceeding through the village on a sleigh. Last year, thje grotto helped the Lions to raise £3,500 for the group’s charity work. Lions spokesperson Maureen Verity said: “Stephen Smith’s have been very supportive. They supply the gifts for the grotto and we pay them a nominal sum in return. Anything left over is funding for our work and is spent during the next 12 months.”
Santa makes a pit stop at Kirktown Garden Centre in Aberdeenshire this weekend with his reindeer in tow. The centre are putting on stovies, soup, teas and coffees and a variety of soft drinks to enjoy under a glittering canopy.
The festive season got off to a great start at North Perrott Farm Shop and Garden Centre in Somerset last weekend when the outlet’s large straw bale man – something of a local landmark – was re-built after being torched by vandals last month.
Local schoolchildren were distraught when they discovered the sculpture they waved to on their way to Misterton First School had been destroyed.
Thanks to the efforts of owner of Jonathan Hoskyns and his staff – who undertook the re-build in the unexpected snow last weekend, finishing after dark – the kids are smiling again.
The straw sculpture was the brainchild of eight-year-old Millie Dyer, who decided she wanted to make a straw bale man of her own after seeing one on her way home from a holiday in Cornwall.
