4th Anniversary of The Store; Reflections on 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina

We had a wonderful 4th Anniversary Sale at the store which just ended on Labor Day--the sale was a big hit with our local customers, who recieved advance notice via our shop Newsletter. We sold lots of our older doll and toy mechandise so we would have room for the Fall and Holiday items, as well as the Fall doll releases from all the major companies.

Our anniversary is always a bit bittersweet--we opened our store on September 10, 2001. That's right--our brand new business opened one day before 9/11. Not an auspicious time--the world changed the day after we opened the store, and we spent the next few months wondering if Katherine's Cottage would survive. In fact, I think the entire doll industry wondered if it would survive, with many major doll manufacturers closing their doors in the two year period after 9/11.

In 2002, we decided to move the time we celebrated our anniversary (and the anniversary sale) to the end of August/beginning of September, and we've kept the anniversary there ever since. And...now we have Katrina during that time period. Our business for the sale definitely dropped off as citizens had more pressing issues on their mind--dolls and toys were not really on their radar screens as they considered the fate of New Orleans and its people.

We won't move our Anniversary and our sale again--perhaps next year, we will collect money during the sale for the ongoing relief of the Katrina victims and evacuees. But, we've certainly learned our lesson that you can't run from history and world events, even in our small corner of the economy and the world.