Every day is Christmas at this Quebec City boutique
CBC
After walking a few laps around the shop, Maria Castagna picks up a glass ornament in the form of a pink, sparkly ice cream cone and smiles widely.
It resembles one she had when she was little, so realistic she remembers trying to lick the sprinkles off.
"This reminded me of it," she said.
Castagna made the trip to Quebec City from New Jersey, drawn in by the picturesque, snowglobe-like scenery around the holidays.
That feeling of nostalgia is what Marc Gaboury hoped to awaken when he first decided to open the Boutique de Noël de Québec, in the heart of Old Quebec, in the summer of 1986.
Having watched his father run a grocery store for years in the city’s tourist district, Gaboury felt ready to open a business of his own.
One evening, as he sat around chatting with friends, he came to the realization there was something missing in the area: A year-round Christmas store.
Growing up, Gaboury's mother often visited Maine, where he saw similar Christmas boutiques. With Quebec City being so popular with tourists, he suspected it would be a winning concept.
"In the first summer, we had a lot of customers already," Gaboury said. “One customer in five was telling me, 'Are you crazy to sell Christmas stuff?' Because this was new in Quebec."
Save for the occasional Easter bunny or skeleton around Halloween, the two-storey shop is dedicated almost exclusively to Christmas all year, from top to bottom.
Animated snow globes, Santa figurines, stockings and ornaments of all shapes and colours line the shelves, which are painted in a dark green, evoking an enchanted forest.
As with most restaurants and stores in the area, Gaboury has some quiet periods in the year, but for the most part it has grown steadily over the last four decades.
It has become even more popular since the city introduced the German Christmas Market, which has kiosks right across the street from the store.
The market has become a major attraction, drawing more than 600,000 people last year, according to Quebec City’s tourism bureau, Destination Québec Cité.
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