62. November 20th, 2010 Picture.

How does one write about the greatest day of their life?  How can you possibly sum up all the feelings, thoughts and sights into words?  That is how I feel as I write this post, there is no way that I could ever do it justice, but I am going to try.

So what happened on said 'Greatest Day of My Life' you ask?  Only the best thing ever, I went to the Yankee Candle flagship store in South Deerfield MA.

Ratty and I decided to take a road trip out to western Mass (aka I decided but promised him beer and food for his cooperation) to visit the Mecca of Candles.  Part of the draw of heading to Western Mass for the day was to also see my friend Kerrie, who moved out there after college to be closer to her now husband, Joe.  We made plans to meet them for lunch at the Northampton Brewery, which is nestled in the cutest, most quintessential New England town ever. Ratty and I made fantastic time, it took us about an hour and a half to get there, so we got to the restaurant right at noon.  We grabbed 2 seats at the bar, ordered a few beers and waited for Kerrie and Joe to arrive.  Fittingly, Ratty ordered the Redheaded Stepchild and I ordered the Golden Child - the two most perfect beverage titles that sum up our personalities and birth order hilariously.  

Kerrie and Joe arrived a few minutes later, so we took our beers upstairs to grab a table.  The brewery is in a really cool building, with floor to ceilings windows, allowing in lots of my personal favorite, natural light.

I love Kerrie and Joe, but since they live so far away, we don't get to see them as much as we would like.  I think the last time Ratty had seen them was their wedding, which was a year and a half ago!  So yea, a visit was definitely overdue.  It was really great to hang out, catch up and spend some quality time together over beers.  Kerrie even managed a slight drunk dial to our other high school friend Maura, telling her how much we missed her and that we needed to work on plans for us all to get together.  Between the food, beers and great company, it was hard to pull ourselves away.  We finally managed to say goodbye around 3pm, realizing that we still had an entire outing, the main event of our road trip, to get to.  We said goodbye to Kerrie and Joe, and then walked around the town a little bit, popping into a used book store and a coffee shop.  We got back on the road to drive the 20 minutes to South Deerfield.  I was beyond giddy.

In the parking lot before we even made it outside.  I was jumping out of my skin with excitement.  This place is no joke, there were school buses, vans and tour buses filling the parking lot and employees with orange vests and flags directing cars to free spots.  

The FIRST Storm Watch display I stumbled on, looks like I am not the only one that loves it!

The place is huge, absolutely huge.  Ratty and I walked in and immediately were overwhelmed.  Right as we walked through the door, a woman handed us a map, a MAP, and we did our best to get our bearings.  There seemed to be endless amounts of rooms and attractions, I wasn't sure we'd ever get to see it all.  We planned our route, making sure to stop at the food court mid-way through, in order to rest and reboot for the second leg of our exploration.

After walking through the country store section, which was already about 7 times the size of a normal Yankee Candle store, we were lead into a  huge, white room, filled with every candle Yankee Candle makes.  They had the yet to be released new releases, plus a few rare and/or retired scents.  I quickly began filling my hand basket with votives and accessories, and eventually had to swap in my basket for a cart, because well, let's face it, I needed to buy a lot of things and those candles are heavy!  One of the displays I kept coming back to was the votive display that reached from one wall to another.  There were baskets filled with every scent Yankee Candle makes and I spent a good amount of time smelling, considering and mulling over which votives I'd add to my mounting collection.  Even Ratty got in on the action, buying is first votive (Fresh Water) and a little glass holder.  I am definitely rubbing off on him.  Although I bought 3 holders (2 for presents) and 20 votives, so Ratty isn't up to my level yet, but honestly, who is?!

Only the greatest candle ever!  I bought 4.  Only 4!

In one section of the room, they had a fragrance perscentality section, oh you read that right, where you could figure out what scents you liked  the best.  Each little door had a different theme, like elegant, creative or optimistic, and you were supposed to open the door and see what scent corresponded with that mood/trait.  I slightly modified this and made it a game, because everything is better when you're being competitive.  I would close my eyes, open the door, and try to guess the type of candle I was smelling.  I got almost every single one right.  Ratty could not believe it, although, he shouldn't have been THAT surprised.

Next we made our way to the Christmas area, complete with a candy store, toys, Lego Land, and...

SANTA!  Yes, it is Christmas EVERYDAY at Yankee Candle!

Yankee Candle has a signature scent that they ONLY sell at their Flagship stores.  You can't buy it online or in regular stores, which meant I needed to own it immediately.  What made it even MORE perfect (as if such a thing could exist) was that it was called Edelweiss, which as most people should know, is one of the stars songs in the Sound of Music.  Sigh, whenever Christopher Plummer sings it after all the children fall into the river I absolutely swoon.  If there was any candle out there that screams Amy, it is this one.  It was MADE for me.  So I bought it, obvi.  Just one though, I didn't want to go crazy.  Plus I'll need a reason to go back to the flagship store in the near future to buy more!

Ratty needed a time out from the Bavarian Village.

Once you walked through the Christmas shop, you were taken to a Castle, which lead to the Bavarian Village.  The walkways were lined with cobble stones, small shop windows lined the streets, and there was even a moat that ran under the drawbridge.  How authentic.  This place is seriously like an amusement park, minus the rides and instead of games and prizes, it's filled with thousands of scented candles.  YES PLEASE!

They even had barrels of glass pickle Christmas ornaments.  Every one in my family has a pickle ornament, stemming from a game that my brothers and sister got when they were little.  It was a jar filled with plastic pickles, and the trick was once you got them all out, you'd never be able to get them all back in, there would always be one left.  So, my family decided to make that extra one an ornament and it's been on our tree every year since.  The original plastic pickle is on my brother Ronny's tree, but we all have a glass pickle to keep the tradition alive.  The original German tradition is that parents are supposed to hide the pickle on the tree someplace, and the first child that finds it on Christmas morning gets a special gift.  Why a pickle?  Who knows.

Once you crossed the drawbridge you were lead into an evergreen forest, where it snows every 4 minutes.  No seriously, each and every day, even in the summer, it snows.  I told you, this place is no joke!

After dragging Ratty through half of the flagship store, we stopped off in the food court for a break and some snacks.  I bought him an ice cream, because he had been such a good boy all day!  I got a coffee and some popcorn and we just rested our feet, looking over our purchases, and listening to the mechanical animal jug band that was playing next to us.  No seriously, they were robot animals singing twangy songs about candles.  Had Ratty not gotten ice cream, this may have been a tipping point in a negative direction, but he was a good sport and we began our trek through the second half of the store.

Way in the back of the store, we found a sports memorabillia section, filled with shirts, pennants, hats, framed pictures complete with a TV and leather couches.  Had Ratty seen this earlier I'm pretty sure I would have been exploring the place by myself.  We joked that the store should really have a bar where all the men can go hang out while the women shop - everyone wins!

The last section we explored was the museum, which chronicled the history of Yankee Candle, from the beginning to where it is today.  The founder, Michael Kittredge, started the company in his basement, and sold it about 10 years ago for $650 million dollars.  IMAGINE?!  No, I can't, it's insane!  He has since started a rival candle company in the same area, hiring most of his original staff from the flagship store.  I talked with the attendant in the museum about this and was completely fascinated, I wanted to know everything, but Ratty's eyes started to glass over, so I politely said goodbye and we made our way out.

Along with the history of Yankee Candle, the museum also showed the different ways candles had been made throughout history, entertaining AND educational.

4 hours, 3 tumblers, 20 votives, 3 candle holders, 1 coffee, 1 ice cream, 1 bag of popcorn and partridge in a pair tree later, we had seen the entire store.  It was, like I said earlier, the greatest day ever!