Seasonable Cold Spell Brings Breath of Fresh Customers to Local Shops

owner of 'A Nu Toy Store' in Tarrytown, said her downtown toy shop should have been bustling during the first two weekends in December.

"But it wasn't," she said. Sure, the economy and the prevalence of online shopping must have had something to do with the slow start to the 2011 holiday season.

"But there was something else, too," Rafter said. "People weren't doing holiday shopping because it didn't feel like Christmas. It was too warm."

Unless you live in Boca or San Diego, it seems somewhat incongruous to pick out wreaths and Christmas trees without even needing hats and scarves.

"Customers kept telling me that they felt like 'it was the last day' to take the kids hiking or to the zoo," Rafter said. "But then it would be 60 degrees the next Saturday as well."

Rafter wasn't alone.

Karen Leone, owner of Expressions on Warburton Avenue in Hastings, barely had a free moment to talk between serving customers this most recent chilly Saturday.

"The last weeks were a little slow though," she said. "I don't think people felt like holiday shopping because it didn't feel like Christmas. Then, this week, it hit them: 'Chanukah and Christmas are only a week away.' They had to have something to put under the tree."

Jack Globenfeld, who—along with his wife Lisa—owns and d in Hastings is used to that warm-weather Christmas, having lived in Fresno, California.

Re-Find, which sells quintessential household gifts for Christmas presents and housewarming parties, generally sees a larger uptick in sales around the holiday season, Globenfeld said.

"This week, somebody came in and said, 'It finally feels like Christmas.'" 

Linda Angel, whose opened in Hastings only this year, had no previous holiday seasons' sales from which to compare.

"Early December was slow, but it picked up a lot today," she said on Saturday. Angel usually closes at 3 p.m. on Saturdays, but decided to stay open later because shoppers were still wandering in. "Mostly though people came in saying they were finally going to buy that piece they'd wanted all year."

With Christmas less than a week away, local shop owners are holding out for a blowout Christmas Eve Saturday—with crisp, seasonable New York holiday weather

—Though, please, no home-binding

Did you delay your holiday shopping because of the warm weather? Tell us in the comments.