Early Christmas Show Comes to Fredericton
With Black Friday on the horizon, it’s time to scavenge the sales and find the perfect Christmas gift. Your gift may be courtesy of the Fredericton Christmas Show at the Exhibition Centre.
Here in a barrage of pop-up shops, homemade goods, food and art are sold, getting a head start on the holidays. Some goods include wood carvings, crafted before, and during the craft show.
At the front entrance, donations are taken in support of the Heroes Equine Learning Program. H.E.L.P provides soldiers, police, and paramedics with PTSD therapy with horses.
Kerri Gaskin is a therapist who said just being in the presence of horses can be therapeutic.
“They’re large animals, but they’re not predators. So, their natural instinct with humans would be to withdraw from them. However, in this model, we often see that the horse intuitively reflects what the human is feeling, but its unable to express,” said Gaskin.
Going from booth to booth, the usual traditional holiday items like Santa carvings are displayed, but you can also get funkier stuff to. One booth sells jams mixed with alcohol, and another booth makes leather sculptures and masks.
A shop called the Lost Book uses recycled books and converts them into personal journals. It could be Nancy Drew, it could be Hardy Boys, the point is that these journals can add flavor to your journals.
Eve Nielson founded the Lost Book five years-ago, but has been passionate about journaling for a while.
“I’ve been journaling myself since I was 13, and so, I was buying cheap journals to write in, and I didn’t like the covers. So, I started re-covering them,” Said Nielson.
Journals might not be for everyone, but Nielson tries to introduce new products to give her business flavor. Some of the books are made into purses, and she also sells creative writing kits.
These kits use ink and custom writing tools to use for your journal. Some of the kits even have themes like Harry Potter to shake things up.
One reaction Nielson always sees is someone thinking it’s just a regular book and become shocked when the pages have no words.
“A lot of them are shocked that they’re journals for one thing. And then, they’re amazed at the wide variety of creativity in them, that there’s no two alike,” she said.
