The Xaverian Weekly’s Local Gift Guide 2020

COVID-19 has taken a toll on small businesses. This holiday season, shopping local will help your favourite neighbourhood shops keep their doors open! In Antigonish, there is no shortage of local businesses to choose from. Below, we have included some gift ideas from some of our personal favorites as inspiration. Happy shopping, and Happy Holidays!

1. Give the Gift of a New Tattoo

New ink can be expensive, so help out a loved one this year with a gift certificate to one of our local tattoo shops! Dane Hiltz at Freedom Electric Tattoo offers a range of tattoo styles, and also sells prints of some of his designs for a moderate price, which lend character to any room. A great gift for any tattoo enthusiast! 

At Folklore Tattoo, Emily Kane and Colleen Murray offer specialized, strictly Blackwork tattoos. While they aren’t offering gift certificates this year, Emily also sells screen-printed totes and apparel with unique designs on her Instagram page!

2. ...or of a Great Hair Day 

Vivid Hair and Body is well known for their magnificent hair coloring and modern cuts. Not only do they have gift certificates available for purchase, but they also stock scrunchies and various other hair products. There’s also Vivid Sidekick, a permanent popup featured by the salon, which sells homeware, clothing, and other accessories. 

3. Deck the Halls with a Locally Grown Christmas Tree (and the table with a chicken!)

Loch Abar Chicken Farm is the perfect place to support local. If you’re in the market for a tree, look no further! These farmers are also well known for their chickens, so if you’re not in the mood for a traditional Christmas turkey, a local chicken is the perfect way to celebrate!

4. Anyone for Five Golden Rings?

Cameron’s Jewelry is a great local option for all your jewelry needs. The kind and knowledgeable staff would be happy to help you find anything you may be in the market for – golden rings, necklaces, watches, and all sorts of other giftware. 

5. Treat Your Favourite Foodie

A favourite among the Antigonish community, Peace by Chocolate recently released new items in time for the holidays. Whether your loved ones are fans of milk, dark, caramel, nuts, or fruit—they’re sure to have something delicious in stock! Pair the chocolate with a t-shirt or the Hadhad’s new book, and you can check any chocolate-lover off your list. 

For the chef in your life, you might consider gifting some fun new seasonings. Big Cove Foods offers a variety of unique and delicious spice blends that make dinners shockingly easy! You can find all their products (including some fun jellies) online, or a smaller selection at Happenstance in downtown Antigonish. 

Just across the street at the Five to a Dollar, you might also pick up some fun flavours of Tidal Salt, harvested straight from the Nova Scotian sea! The company’s goal is to relocalize sea salt, and they sell their product in individual jars or sample-sets.

Not sure the actual food gifts would make it to Christmas? Why not pick up a giftcard to your loved one’s favourite restaurant! The Tall & Small Cafe, The Waffle Bus, Gabrieau’s Bistro, Justamere Cafe & Bistro, Little Christo’s, Townhouse, Snow Queen, Love Eat Asian, Myer’s Tea Room, and the Brownstone all offer gift certificates in any amount. At The Waffle bus, you can also pick up packaged coffee and their logo tee-shirts—perfect for the waffle lover in your life!

6. …or Your Favourite Fashionista 

Trendy’s Clothing and Shoe Shop is your stop for a slightly higher price range gift. Trendy’s offers a great selection of footwear, and some very nice clothing. If you’re searching for Burks or Blundstones this season, this is the perfect place to go. Sheepskin wool insoles from Lismore Farm, another local business, are a great compliment to a new pair of shoes! 

Wallace Leathers is your one stop shop for all things leather, they carry a variety of items including beautiful leather gloves which are perfect to keep you warm all winter, shoes, and handcrafted leather journals. Check out their facebook page!

Photo by Sarah Laffin

7. Give the Gift of Relaxation

Antigonish Nail Boutique is skilled at full sets of nails. They also do manicures and fills, making a gift certificate to the shop a great gift for any nail lover. Along with nailcare, they also sell Hempz Lotion, which is perfect for a stocking stuffer, or a homemade spa kit! 

If you aren’t a fan of the at-home spa experience, a day at Baile Mor Salonspa might be more up your ally. The spa offers a number of different relaxing experiences, including massages and facials!

For a Gold Dust Tanning is a great place to get a tan, and pretend you got to go somewhere warm over the holidays instead of being stuck in the cold. Pick up a gift card here and help your loved one pretend they aren’t stuck in the snow. 

8. For The People Who Have Everything

The Plum Tree Gift Shoppe is a great place to find the perfect Christmas ornament for your loved one, or pick up a new Christmas-themed print for your wall. They also carry candles, journals, socks, and sweet treats—great for stuffing those stockings!

The Posh Peppermint is another great place to buy something fun or unique for someone who has everything. They carry a huge variety of gifts, including home decor, candles, ornaments, art, and the quintessentially Nova Scotian gurgle jug. 

Briefly mentioned earlier, Happenstance also stocks a wide range of gifts, and specializes in things unique to Nova Scotia. Pewter, tartan, pottery, and a range of books by Nova Scotian authors are just a few of the treasures you might find here. A great place to shop for someone who might not make it home for the holidays this year!

The Antigonish Farmers Market is also home to a lot of great gift options. Now in their new building, the Market offers many vendors and is the often the perfect place to find options within your price range while supporting local. The market is open every Saturday from 8:30am to 1:00pm, and will host a series of special Christmas markets Wednesday evenings in December.

And finally, Red Sky Gallery is the best place to get all of the cards you need this holiday season. Each card is made by a local or provincial artist, and would be a treat to find in the mailbox. 

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We’ve tried to include as many local businesses as possible in this guide, but ultimately only had room for so many. If we’ve missed your favourite, or if you run a local business you think we should know about, please tell us (and our readers) about it in the comments below!

Down Home Christmas

A Christmas spent “up the lane” in Upper Big Tracadie, Nova Scotia

Tara Reddick is a third-year student at STFX, she grew up in Antigonish.  She is a playwright, her play “The West Woods” toured Nova Scotia and was also  featured at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in 2017. The following story is a little look into her childhood during a Christmas spent “up the lane” in Upper Big Tracadie, Nova Scotia. Upper Big Tracadie is a rural African Nova Scotian community about 25 minutes from the town of Antigonish.

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My mother and father always did the best they could at Christmas. I never really asked for anything. What I received, I received. It was always about the spirit of Christmas and never about gifts.  I never bragged to my friends after Christmas break, I had nothing to brag about. I tell you though, I can remember every Christmas like it was yesterday. I miss my Nanny especially at the Holidays, she died the day after Christmas; I was there when she took her last breath and I think about her        everyday. Nothing will ever come close to a Christmas spent at my Nan’s down home. She was our matriarch, she was our rock.  Her name was Dorothy Daye and this Christmas marked the third year of her passing.

Go Tell it on the Mountain 

Christmas eve, mom and dad pack up the few gifts we have and the 6 of us load up our Dodge Omni meant for 4. Lorraine and Wilfred, two boys and two girls rowdy unruly brats. Mom says, “Let’s wake up Christmas day down home kids.” Do we have to mom? Off to Nanny and Granddaddy’s we go. Folks are home from Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. Aunts, uncles and cousins alike. Nintendo show downs, penny hockey, snakes and ladders. Checkers too, but we can’t find all the pieces.  Sliding down the stairs on our bums. Carpet burns and playing school, “I want to be the teacher this time.” The wood furnace is burning, uncle Barry got it wide open I tell yah! Nan is baking, molasses cake, corn bread, brown sugar-squares, lemon, apple and blueberry pie, “Did anyone take out the turkey yet?” Better take out a big one. It is still early in the evening, now it’s time to get out Mahalia Jackson’s Christmas album.  The needle on the record player isn’t the best, but it plays. Granddaddy fell asleep in his favourite chair. Just a few hours before he had it rockin’ and the kitchen turned into a wrestling ring. WWF legends, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Roddy Piper.  “ Get em, that’s it, pin him, come on pin him, give it to him.” He smokes his Export A’s and sneaks a little drink and the sweat is pouring. “How much wood did Barry put in that furnace anyway?” The kids are tearing the house up, playing hide and go seek, finding places we never knew existed. 

Nan cleans houses in town and the families she works for always give her chocolates. Me and cousin Geneva eat them before she even knows they are open.

Later in the night, Nan just wants her daughters to stay in and pray in the Christmas day, but my aunt’s got other plans. They go down, down the lane to Mrs. Cunningham’s and over to Rear Monastery to visit aunt Evelyn. They come back laughing and telling stories and I listen, I always listen.  Nan is asleep at the table she was waiting up. Now all 20 of us cousins have found a spot to sleep. On the floor, we take beds on the coach, even in the hallway, in every corner all of us sleeping, close as close can be. The house is warm with love and we are happy the furnace has died down, but don’t dare let that fire go out cause it’s cold tonight. 

Morning, Nan is first to wake up she is at the stove. She starts in on breakfast. Two cartons of eggs, two pounds of bacon, fresh biscuits and beans.  The aunts are tired, “See I told you fellas’ to stay your ass home last night, out running the roads.”

I wish I could go back in time, there was so much love and I had my Nan.