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Staying In and Getting Cozy: A Shopkeeper’s Guide To Embracing the Winter Season

A cozy display featuring a lambswool blanket, a cup of hot tea, a burning candle, books, and more.

January is here, and for shopkeepers like ourselves, this means turning the page on a busy holiday season and embracing the opportunities that a new year brings. Floors are swept clean, shelves are restocked and rearranged, and holiday decorations are lovingly packed away in boxes and crates. We’re preparing our shops to be a haven for our customers—a place where you can come in from the bracing cold of New England and enjoy a turn through the cozy aisles.

January Restock

Many of our most popular winter items are kept in stock well past the holiday season, since we know that in New England, winter likes to stick around awhile after Santa’s long gone. Cold-weather essentials—like  hats and gloves,  scarves and blankets,  hot water bottles and  tea kettles—are in stock online and in store. From the coolest mornings to the frostiest nights, you’ll be covered (in some cases, literally) with Boston General Store’s selection of winter gear. 

A hot water bottle, a cup of tea, and a cozy blanket.

Bringing the Coziness Home

While we thoroughly enjoy a brisk winter hike or a stroll to the neighborhood gathering spot to warm up with good food and company, we often find ourselves spending more time indoors during the colder months. As such, we look for ways to create an atmosphere of coziness in our homes. While there will always be the demands of work or school, we try to carve out time in the off-hours to unwind with our families, making our homes a sanctuary from the cold and the busyness of daily life.

With  pots of hearty stew simmering away on the stovetop, we curl up with  soft blankets on the sofa and wrap our hands around steaming mugs of tea.  Hand warmers keep us toasty while leaving our fingers free to text a friend, search for recipes, or find a movie to watch. When it feels like we just can’t shake the cold, hot water bottles offer up comforting warmth to chase away the chills. 

A person wrapped in a blanket holding a cup of tea.

Embracing Slow Living

Once we’ve established an acceptable baseline of coziness in our homes, we turn our focus to how we’ll pass the time until we are ready to emerge from our self-made cocoons. 

Folding tables are pulled from the basement and set up in corners where Christmas trees once stood, now transformed into quiet alcoves where  puzzles take shape, piece by piece. If Santa was good to us, we may have received supplies for hobbies like  painting or  writing. With the holiday bustle behind us, maybe there’s a little time to  read or try out a recipe from a new  cookbook. In the end, it’s these simple, quiet moments that make winter feel a little shorter and a lot more enjoyable.

 

A desk setup featuring writing accoutrements, a stack of books, and a warm candle.

Enjoying vs Enduring

As winter settles in, we have a choice: we can endure the cold, counting down the days until spring, or we can embrace the season for what it offers. There’s something uniquely comforting about these quieter months, when the world slows down and we have the chance to find warmth not just in our homes, but in our hearts. Rather than viewing winter as a hurdle to overcome, we can approach it as an opportunity to slow down, savor the simple joys, and create moments of peace amidst the chill. We hope you'll join us in embracing the winter season and making it a time to reflect, create, and connect.

Shop our Cozy Living Collection

 

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