Laura Secord/Hallmark

This business has closed.
I really used to like browsing for cards and eating laura secord ice cream.

I don’t go to this Hallmark to buy cards. I don’t go to buy wrapping paper or tape or ribbons or bows or gift bags. I don’t go for ice cream (yes, they sell ice cream) or figurines or collector’s item tree ornaments. I don’t go for photo albums, notebooks, baby books, memory-​keeping books or anything else, really.
But you will see me go into this Hallmark.
And I will buy one single item when I go.
A single (okay, sometimes TWO) Secord chocolate from the chocolate display case. Secord chocolates are one of my most favourite things and I cannot get them anywhere else.
And so three stars to you Hallmark, for making many products I’ll never use/​buy from your store but selling one that I will buy forever.

They should rename this the «Get-​your-​foot-​out-​of-​your-​mouth, Non-​committal-​holiday-​gift-​Superstore.» It’s rows on rows of Hallmark Greeting Cards, lame gifts, and a counter selling Laura Secord chocolates. It’s seemingly designed for picking up all the stuff you need to (a) make up with your girlfriend (at least if you and/​or she have little imagination, anyway), or (b) visit a relative you’re not particularly close to.
I come here for reason (b), since they sell a lot of the schmaltzy, old-​fashioned greeting cards (fancy script, birds ‘n’ flowers, etc.) that some people still seem to like. I was cheered up, however, when they introduced a cheaper line of those kinds of cards, which cost a few bucks less than the $ 4+ Hallmark seems to be able to get away with charging nowadays. And the cheap ones don’t seem any different, either.