Christmas in September?

Normally, it looks like Christmas in July around here as we hustle to finish, pack, and ship out our Christmas products by August 1st. But, after nearly 2 months of lockdowns this summer, our Christmas production is a bit behind schedule. So, it looks like Christmas in September instead. If there is anything our Ziyada team has learned during this pandemic, it is how to pivot (and perhaps pivot again, if necessary)! We’ve readjusted timetables, the layout of our office to accommodate for social distancing, and our production schedules and hopes for both 2020 and 2021. It hasn’t been the easiest 18 months, but we’re comforted knowing that countless others are in this boat with us. In fact, the resiliency and innovation in our own team and in people across the globe has given us a lot of hope as we press on together. 

So, two months later than expected, I look out at the sea of red and green fabric covering nearly every surface in our office. In ordinary times, a two month delay might have me in tears, but looking from the mistletoe embroidery hoop sample sprawled on our production manager’s desk to the bits of Christmas tree fabric surrounding the cutting table, I feel immense pride well up. No, we aren’t on the schedule we had hoped or planned for, but we are here. Our doors are open, the products are beautiful, and our team is healthy and thriving.

Christmas has always been a time of hope and anticipation for me, and that hope is not lost on me now as I look across our office space. Our community (and so many others across the globe), have faced brutal lockdown restrictions, economic devastation, loss of loved ones, fear, and real darkness during this pandemic. And yet, here we are together. We have not been forgotten or left alone. We have our health, we have enough to eat, we have each other, and we are somehow getting work done. 

Christmas is about the incarnation of the Word in the world of humanity, and the hope He brings. I see that hope here in this office. It is light in darkness, it is joy in desolation, it is happiness in sorrow, and it is life in death. I can’t wait until all of these beautiful products find their way across the ocean. I think you’ll love this year’s line and may they remind you of the hope we have in Him!