A New Kind Of Country Christmas
For decades, it was one of Leelanau County’s most beloved holiday fixtures – a retail store dedicated almost exclusively to Christmas ornaments and other yuletide décor. Country Christmas operated out of a small building on M-72 for over 35 years before closing for good in 2022. This holiday season, though, the space is abuzz once more, with the owners of Bee Joyful – a local maker of beeswax soap and other natural skin products – bringing a new look and feel to the Country Christmas building.
“I grew up right here in this area, and my parents actually lived just a few doors down from the Country Christmas store,” says Austin Bower, who co-owns Bee Joyful with his wife Bethany. “Later, my wife and I would visit the shop every year for Christmas ornaments, whether it was for a ‘couple’s first Christmas’ ornament or a ‘baby’s first Christmas’ ornament for each of our kids. We were disappointed to see the shop closed when we had our seventh child, because they needed a ‘baby's first Christmas’ like all of our other kids!”
They might not have gotten that ornament, but when the Country Christmas building hit the market last year, the Bowers knew they had to buy it.
“It wasn’t ever really a goal to have a storefront, but it was kind of a dream,” Bower tells the Leelanau Ticker. “But when this space came up on the market last year, Bethany and I had a conversation and realized, ‘OK, maybe this is the right direction for our business to go.’”
While Bee Joyful is new to the brick-and-mortar retail game, the business itself is anything but new. Bethany started the operation all the way back in 2004, leaning on artisan skills she’d learned growing up on her family farm near Howell to make beeswax soap and other natural skin products.
“She's the daughter of a beekeeper; her family has a farm, they keep bees and they've been doing it for 30 years,” Bower says of Bethany. In the early days, Bee Joyful products were just a value-add for Bethany’s family farm. Then, in 2012, a few years after getting married and putting down roots in northern Michigan, the Bowers started taking Bee Joyful products to farmers markets in Traverse City, Northport, and Glen Arbor.
The brand grew from there, expanding to include a full line of beeswax bar soaps, deodorants, balms, salves, creams, and even laundry detergent. Within a few years, Bower says, Bee Joyful was a full-time endeavor, with the business operating not just on the regional farmers market circuit, but also moving into wholesale accounts and online retail. These days, you can find Bee Joyful products on Amazon.com, as well as at local spots like Oryana, Oleson’s, or Edson Farms.
Former owners Bill and Lee Smith operated Country Christmas for decades, building it into a go-to spot for not just ornaments and handcrafted Christmas décor, but also for jewelry, local art, and antiques. The store closed in 2020 after Bill passed away, but opened briefly again in the fall of 2022 for a retirement sale. The property, which also includes an adjoining three-bedroom house, hit the market last spring for $474,900, and the Bowers jumped at the chance to buy. Since then, they've redecorated the store, notably swapping its red-and-green exterior paint job for a new white-and-yellow aesthetic. Bee Joyful opened in the space last month, and Bower says the shop has already seen a slew of former Country Christmas regulars.
In addition to presenting Bee Joyful to a new audience, Bower says the brick-and-mortar presence will allow the company to expand its product selection. The focus is still on soaps and skin products made from locally-sourced honey, lavender, and other natural ingredients. However, Bower says the business is now also doing more around gifts, including honey-bee themed items, beeswax candles, local books, jewelry, and handmade gifts, crafts, and art from local artists.
Bower says the plan is for Bee Joyful to continue making regular appearances at local farmers markets – including this winter at the indoor farmers market at the Grand Traverse Commons. The business will also keep its wholesale accounts and continue online sales – something Bower says has become an increasingly popular as some of Bee Joyful’s long-time shoppers have retired and begun spending winters elsewhere.
In other Leelanau retail/restaurant news…
>Our sister publication the Traverse City Ticker broke the news last week that Lake Leelanau’s Nittolo’s Seafood & Pizza is expanding to downtown Traverse City. Owner and chef Eric Nittolo shared with The Ticker that the new restaurant, called Nittolo’s Little Italy, will open next spring in Traverse City’s warehouse district. The 60-seat eatery will offer the same menu as the Lake Leelanau location, but with smaller portion sizes, lower prices, and an emphasis on happy hour business.