By Michelle Dunlop Herald Writer
Time is running short to find the perfect holiday gift.
Maybe you need gifts for co-workers, for neighbors or for old friends.
With six shopping days until Christmas, it’s wise to shop at stores where you’ll find something for almost anyone on your list.
These two local shops fit the bill:
Joyworks
1002 First St. Snohomish
Fun and affordable, varied and vintage.
Those words describe Joyworks in downtown Snohomish.
The store is expansive, its offerings unique and diverse.
“A lot of people often comment about how we keep our gifts affordable,” said Joyworks owner Clarice Johnson.
That could be Joyworks’ recipe for success; the shop has been in business for 32 years.
This time of year, many customers come into Joyworks to buy Christmas ornaments.
The store has dozens of Christmas trees throughout the rooms and basement that make up Joyworks. Many of the trees feature ornaments of the same theme. In the room of baby and children’s gifts, you’ll find ornaments to mark a child’s first Christmas as well as a tree laden with cupcake-shaped decorations.
Downstairs, there are gifts and ornaments for gardeners, bird-lovers, fishermen, wine-drinkers and adventurers. Got a baseball fan on your list? Joyworks has you covered. Ornaments are priced as low as $3.95. Most are well under $20.
“A lot of people come here to buy ornaments,” Johnson said. “They give an ornament every year to children or grandchildren.”
But Joyworks isn’t just an ornament store. There’s plenty of home decor, jewelry and hand bags to peruse.
In the past year, Johnson’s daughters have been responsible for expanding Joyworks’ clothing assortment, which includes ladies’ dresses, sweaters and skirts. The shop also carries an array of cold-weather accessories. Like the rest of the items in the shop, these tend to have a vintage flair — with layered fur scarves, flower embellishments on caps and soft, lacy patterned fingerless gloves.
“We try to keep it fun,” Johnson said.
Mukilteo Chocolate
407 Lincoln Ave. Mukilteo
When you step into Mukilteo Chocolate Co., you’ll likely be greeted by a delicious waft of chocolate aroma and a cheery smile from owner Jan Straub.
Mukilteo Chocolate has a variety of goodies that would be perfect for stocking stuffers, as gifts to ship to grandma or to share around the fire on a cold evening.
There are bags filled with gummies, chocolate-shaped Santas and candies shaped like sea shells. And a wide selection of handmade fudge can be sliced to fit your needs.
The real treasure at Mukilteo Chocolate is the truffles. Straub’s shop carries many of the traditional flavors you would expect: milk and dark chocolates, lemon creme, coconut creme and vanilla buttercream.
But Straub has crafted flavors you might not readily find elsewhere, like Bangalore spice, rosewater chocolate or jasmine tea truffles. The Haiku truffle blends ginger and a hint of wasabi in dark chocolate. The Mediterranean truffle combines pistachio and orange with milk and dark chocolate.
Among Straub’s best selling truffles are the lavender cheesecake, the Mukilteo mocha and the palenque, which is a dark chocolate truffle with chili pepper and cinnamon spice.
The truffles cost $1.95 each. A nine-piece box sells for $17.50. You also can order and ship boxes of truffles online: www.mukilteochocolate.com.
A Navy wife, Straub took over the shop about four years ago and mostly runs the store on her own. This time of year, that means 18- to 20-hour work days for Straub, who doesn’t seem to mind.
Straub’s husband is often away with the Navy and is no longer based in the area. But the mother of two, who volunteers and coaches her younger son in sports, said that other nearby business owners and regular customers provide a stable sense of family that Navy families often don’t get.
“I’m really enjoying meeting so many people,” she said.
