Houston Nutcracker Market decks the halls for 36th year
The forklift incident still brings Paul Michael to tears.
Years ago, the small vehicle collided with a precarious rack of rugs he had assembled for the Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market. He stood to lose an entire display just two days before his company’s biggest show of the year.
“It was just like giant dominos falling,” he said. “It was a mess of tangled steel, Persian rugs and merchandise.”
But his team of workers rallied and saved 60 percent of the display items. That helped him ring up record sales with the kind of frenzied resolve that has transformed the yearly market from a small church bazaar into a sprawling, four-day extravaganza for tens of thousands of Houstonians.
“It kicks off the Christmas season,” said Mary Alice Parmet, the market’s chairman. “It’s just so positive, so fun.”
This year’s event, which ended Sunday, culminated months of preparation for hundreds of vendors like Michael selling everything from standard stocking stuffers and ties to embroidered cowboy boots and spicy olives.
Now in its 36th year, the fundraiser has
grown to cover 540,000 square feet at NRG Center. More than 100,000 shoppers spent nearly $20 million there last year, a quarter of which benefited the Houston Ballet Foundation.
This year, it took more than 50 18-wheelers to deck the hall with Christmas decorations and gifts, Parmet said. About 280 vendors draped their booths with lights and garland, ready to be mobbed.
On Saturday, shoppers swarmed the entrance way and streamed into the hall when the doors opened at 10 a.m. It was a chance to don antlers, break the budget and down at least one mimosa before noon.
By midmorning, even the novelty Styrofoam cups were going fast. Shoppers flocked to The Write Designs booth to snatch stacks of them stylized like greeting cards — holiday, humor, birthday, wedding.
The small company first trekked to the market from the Dallas area 10 years ago with all the cups it could fit into a Penske box truck. This year, company manager Sara Goldstein scrambled to unload a packed tractortrailer, expecting to sell more than 13,000 of them.
“They make great gifts,” she said.
In a small black-and-white booth, Kris Wittenberg savored a sense of relief as shoppers scrambled for items that read “Be good to people,” a simple slogan she decided to emblazon on a shirt after a rude encounter with a stranger in 2008. The idea formed the foundation of her Colorado-based company, which made its first appearance at the market this year.
It had been a challenging few months for Wittenberg, who said she had approached a nervous breakdown in the lead up to her debut and fell asleep with a pizza box on her chest after a long day of setup earlier in the week. But the positivity of her products proved infectious as customers showered her with praise and made it all worth it, she said.
“It changes people’s behavior,” she said. “I’ve heard some really amazing stories.”
At a more eclectic booth, Amy Labbe helped shoppers assemble jewelry with antique trinkets and oddities, nearly all of which she had fashioned herself. For the past eight years, she has traveled from Uniontown, Kan., to set up at the market, her biggest retail show.
Wearing a hippie’s headband over hot pink hair and several pounds of turquoise, she pointed to baubles made from her greatgrandmother’s cookie cutters, tiny pocket watches and doll heads excavated from German toy factory razed during World War II.
“I’ve always been gypsy who travels around, selling my stuff,” she said.
By midday, tired shoppers dropped their bags on the bright red carpet and sat down to picnic. A group of women in matching headbands and shirts that read “Let’s Take an Elfie” readied themselves for another round of browsing.
“We scope it out first, then go back in,” said Jessica Turner, who has braved the market each year since 2012.
For Mary Smith, the market has been a tradition since she moved to Houston in 2001. She brought her daughter and granddaughter this year.
“It’s a wonderful time for us to be together,” said Smith, who unearthed her Christmas shirt and jingle bell earrings for the occasion,
Across the hall, Jason Giangrosso and Chelsea Barnett gazed at Paul Michael’s tower- ing display of holiday lights. The roommates from Katy had already put up their Christmas tree, but Giangrosso was tempted to buy a few more strands. “Why not?” he asked. Michael, now the market’s largest vendor, marveled on how much it has changed since the 1980s, when he first made the trip from his small town in Arkansas to stock a tiny booth with handcrafted jewelry.
Now, he hauls in truckloads of home decorations and furniture he and his team make from antique doors and windows and reclaimed wood. His sprawling setup, packed with shoppers, occupies more than an acre on the convention floor.
“Houston and the Nutcracker Market have formed my career over the years,” he said. “Everything we know and do we learned here.”