By Ray Baird
An “old-fashioned” Christmas is closer than you think. Just find a general store or a country store. John Brown’s Store on Highway 66 north of King, for example, has a lot of traditional items that are hard to find in “big box” stores.
Our favorites include several on Main Street in Mount Airy, where there are hardware stores, candy stores, specialty shops and plenty of good eating places!
Further up Highway 52, across the state line at Cana, is Virginia Produce, an old country store where you can buy fruits and vegetables by the pound or box. Old-fashioned candies are displayed in wooden barrels and you can bag your own or buy it already packaged. (There is just something especially old-fashioned about picking them out from a barrel and dropping them into a brown paper bag!)