Torwood Garden Centre staff still feeling festive in January

Gift buyer Sandra Crawford has spent the last few weeks travelling to various festive trade fairs and has already purchased all of the Larbert garden centre’s 2019 Christmas stock.

“Believe it or not January is the time for businesses such as ours to buy Christmas stock as this is when all the fairs are on selling everything from trees to baubles and festive lighting,” she said.

“I’m not long back from Holland which is probably the best Christmas trade fair we go to every year. The Harrogate Christmas Fair is another favourite as it’s a great place to see the very best products that suppliers in the industry have to offer.

“The fairs are also good way of seeing what the upcoming Christmas themes will be and to get inspiration on colours for our own displays.

“The trending theme this year definitely seems to be a ‘Country Christmas’ with colours such as deep red, soft gold and also some tartan.

“It looks as though Christmas 2019 is going to have a rustic, traditional feel – think very cosy and comfortable as families gather around the table for their Christmas dinner.

“Other themes this year are woodland, candy-cane colours and modern greys and whites.

“Gift-wise, baubles are always popular, especially for young people starting out on their own or couples moving into their first homes.

One of the new, standout items for Christmas 2019 seems to be horsetail lights for the tree which are placed at the top and give a sort of waterfall effect. Outside battery-operated lights are also in high demand.

“For children, unicorns are still in as are crystal balls and pastel, glitter colours.”

Although Sandra has ordered all of Torwood’s Christmas stock, she won’t take delivery of it until September.

“When the stock arrives it always feels like Christmas itself because we’ve waited so long for it!” she said.

“We’ll then spend about four to six weeks putting it all together and normally have it out on the shop floor in mid October.”