For most people, Christmas comes once a year. But for the Worsham family, they live it year-round. While other families put up their Christmas trees and wrap presents in December, the Worshams are constantly preparing for the holidays, whether they’re purchasing materials in the spring or decorating houses in the winter.
Christmas isn’t just a holiday — it's their livelihood. For the past 10 years, Randi and her two daughters, Becca and Jennifer, have been spreading Christmas joy in the community through The Christmas Shoppe, a seasonal business that sells Christmas decorations, ornaments, trees, snow globes, apparel and other services on Southlake Boulevard. In a year filled with much sadness and unprecedented challenges, people are ready for the holidays, and Randi looks forward to helping them celebrate.
“As negative as this year has been, I think it’s given us an opportunity to bring some happiness and joy into people’s lives,” Randi says. “I think everybody is just extra ready for Christmas this year in particular.”
STARTING CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS
Randi has always loved Christmas. Whether the family was in Alaska, Tennessee, New York, Minnesota or Texas, she always made a point to go all out for her girls during the festive season.
“The big joke is dad came home from work one day and saw that she put up a giant Christmas tree in the laundry room,” Becca remarks. “She’d put up 13-14 trees in our house every year. She had so many people asking her to decorate their homes. She even decorated her church. She’s just always loved Christmas so much.”
Becca says her mother treated Christmas like Jesus’ birthday and threw him a big party every year. Their family of five would bake cookies together, decorate the house, sing carols and attend a candle-lit service together. And of course, no Christmas was complete without paying a visit to Santa Claus.
“My mother still loves the fun of Santa Claus,” Jennifer chuckles. “She’ll tell us, ‘I still believe, I don’t know what y’all are always talking about. The minute you stop believing, he stops coming.’ She’s a 60-something-year-old woman and still tells us that Santa is real.”
But of all the Christmas traditions they held, decorating the tree was the most special.
“My mother would give the girls a Christmas ornament every year,” Randi recalls. “That way whenever they were on their own, they pretty much had a full tree of ornaments for themselves. When they got married, they already had their whole Christmas collection.”
Those traditions mean even more to Becca and Jennifer now that they’re older and have families of their own. Becca thoroughly enjoys reflecting on her own childhood while pulling out ornaments with her kids around Christmastime.
“My children help me unwrap ornaments every year, and they know which ones are mommy’s favorites,” Becca smiles. “It’s fun to go back and look at those ornaments. It’s nice to see what was important to us when we were younger and share those experiences with our own children.”
For Randi, those holiday memories of being together are worth more than any decoration, ornament or present.
“Christmas is a time for family — a time to reflect on what Christmas really means,” Randi says. “It’s a lot of work, but I love doing that for my family. It's just a fun time to bring people together and be happy.”
OPENING THE SHOP
In 2010, Randi turned her love of Christmas into an entrepreneurial endeavor. She woke up with an epiphany in the middle of the night and felt God was telling her to open a business that reflected his name in Southlake.
“She wanted to have a building in Southlake with Christ’s name on the outside of the building,” Becca recalls. “When mom passed down the business to me, she said you can do anything you want, you can change whatever you want, make any business decision you want. But the name of the business will always be The Christmas Shoppe so Christ’s name is on the outside of the building.”
In the first year of business, The Christmas Shoppe was open year-round so people could get Christmas shopping done in advance. But after a slow business start, Randi decided to adjust the boutique shop to a part-time schedule where they opened on Labor Day and ran through the holidays.
The revised schedule worked to their benefit as they were not only able to re-stock over the summer but also expand their inventory to decorate for the fall and Thanksgiving as well.
“We sometimes call it ‘Hallow-Thanks-Mas,’” Becca chuckles. “We’ve already started decorating people’s homes. We’ve done three houses already, and it wasn’t even November. Christmas comes early for us.”
As head designer, Becca makes custom wreaths, swags, mantle pieces and other types of in-home decor for their customers. Whenever customers are decorating their houses, trees or fireplaces, they usually seek Becca’s input. Their clientele comes from high places, with city councilmembers not just asking for her design expertise with their own homes, but with Southlake Town Hall.
Becca’s keen eye for seasonal style, as well as her deep love for the holidays, are a few of the reasons why Randi trusted her enough to pass the business to her last year.
“I’ve always loved Christmas as much as mom has,” Becca expresses. “We’re a great team together. She’s always there, she always goes into the homes to help me decorate. She trusts me enough to completely hand me over the reigns of her baby. It was an honor that she trusted me with something she loved so much.”
LIGHTING UP PEOPLE’S LIVES
With The Christmas Shoppe brightly lit with colorful ornaments, lush garlands, pristine candlesticks, Christmas angels and trees, Randi says the shop lights up people’s lives. She says they will sometimes see customers enter the shop and not buy anything. They just need an emotional boost for a hard time they may be going through.
“I have several friends that come in just to feel good,” Randi says. “I have one friend that every time she comes in, she cries. It’s nice to see our customers that have been loyal for 10 years come in every year just to experience the happiness of Christmas.”
Some residents need that Christmas joy more than others do. Randi mentioned the hardships some people experience during the holidays and how The Christmas Shoppe is there for them too.
“Christmas is not always a happy time for everyone,” Randi expresses. “They have lost loved ones, or maybe they’re not with their family and they’re lonely. We’ve had people that have come in and are sad when they get there. But when they leave, they feel a lot better because they’ve been loved on and talked to. We’ve had a lot of people experience many tragedies, and we’ve tried to help those people as much as we can.”
To Becca, The Christmas Shoppe is much more than a seasonal business — it’s a people business.
“It’s about building relationships more than it is about anything else,” Becca expresses. “I think that’s why people come in. We have some people that come in, and they won’t buy a single thing. But they like the warmth, the peace and friendliness that The Christmas Shoppe brings.”
With most of its customers staying put instead of traveling for the holidays, this December is on track to be the busiest season yet for The Christmas Shoppe. But the ladies are ready for it not just with their wrap-up sales, but also with socially distanced events like crafts, story times and photo sessions with Santa Claus.
“The world is kind of living in fear, and I can’t live like that,” Randi says. “We’re going to still get together, be joyful, happy and not be afraid of things that God is in control of.”
And with a year full of trials and tribulations, people are ready for the happiness that the holidays can bring. Randi says she looks forward to bringing the Christmas spirit into Southlake homes everywhere this December.
“That’s kind of our mission at The Christmas Shoppe, to bring light into people’s lives,” Randi expresses. “The world got a little darker this year, so that just means our light has to shine a lot brighter.”