{"id":273,"date":"2026-02-09T01:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/273\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T01:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:10:14","slug":"explore-18000-ornaments-at-a-year-round-christmas-shop-in-antwerp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/273\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore 18,000 ornaments at a year-round Christmas shop in Antwerp"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) \u2014 Getting ready for the holiday season has never been stressful for Christel Dauwe \u2014 after all, her holiday period lasts all year long in her Christmas<\/a> ornament shop in the Belgian city of Antwerp.<\/p>\n

Her collecting began in her teenage years, and she now has more than 64,000 ornaments in her personal collection and another 18,000 displayed in her shop, the Christel Dauwe Collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy personal wish is to have a Christmas museum, where ornaments and the idea of Christmas can be on permanent display,\u201d she told The Associated Press. But until that day comes, her small shop uses every corner to display its vast inventory.<\/p>\n

Its wares include birds of every feather, fruit arrangements, cars, angels, snowmen and other figurines, ranging from a few euros for a wood laser-cut Cathedral of Antwerp to more than 500 euros ($580) for a special ornament of Alexander the Great on horseback.<\/p>\n

The store began 35 years ago as an antiques shop, selling a few ornaments on the side, but Dauwe wanted to try selling more. <\/p>\n

On the suggestion of a Polish au pair, Dauwe and her husband traveled to Poland and found a factory that could produce exactly the ornaments she wanted. The only catch was that 200 pieces of each design had to be ordered at a time.<\/p>\n

They returned home deflated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter second thoughts though, we decided to order 20 shapes of 200 each, and one day they arrived — all 4,000 of them. We gave some away and the rest we put in the shop and, well \u2026 That\u2019s the story from there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The original Polish factory still supplies many of the shop\u2019s ornaments, in addition to 32 other European companies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an ornament here for everyone. We\u2019ve had people come in who say they have a new pet or even a new car and we try to match an ornament to them. In the end the goal is not to have some kind of posh tree decorated all with the same colors and Christmas balls. The goal of ornaments is to make you smile,\u2033 she said.<\/p>\n

Some ornaments are more personal. And one year there was an ornament of Christel herself, designed by her husband as a surprise. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s been asked to provide ornaments for weddings and other events as well.<\/p>\n

As far as having Christmas all year round, Dauwe says she is never bored with it. Twice a year she goes around the shop and dusts each ornament individually. She has met people from all over the world, and entertains die-hard locals who stop into the store just for a morning chat. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two ways to go with Christmas. It\u2019s either the nostalgia of the past or the hope for the future,\u2033 she said. \u2033Hope is what is the most important to me. It\u2019s what keeps you going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) \u2014 Getting ready for the holiday season has never been stressful for Christel Dauwe \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[268,19,269,262,263,264,265,266,267,177,261,142],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-alexander-the-great","tag-antwerp","tag-business","tag-christel-dauwe-collection","tag-christmas","tag-general-news","tag-holidays","tag-jwd-evergreen","tag-lifestyle","tag-poland","tag-retail-and-wholesale","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}