From the outside, Peddler’s Village is displayed as a beautiful little town ripped right out of a Hallmark Holiday romcom. Each shop was carefully crafted as an 18th-century style building; over the holiday season, it is lathered in decorations. A visitor cannot take more than 10 steps without the sound of holiday music creeping into their ears, coming from one of the stores or stands. 

Peddler’s Village is a great place to visit over the holiday season, with various themed events for guests. When I went on December 1st, there was a gingerbread competition where people could go around and vote to rank gingerbread structures made by people in the community. Gingerbread structures were separated into specific categories: by age, for teens and younger, or different genres such as “Movies and Television” or “Holly Jolly”. Every category gave out its own awards. The holiday events at Peddler’s Village run from November 15th to January 11th. 

Arguably more notable, however, are the shops that run year-round. Despite the town’s bland brick vanilla aesthetic, each shop has its own obscure niche that it stands by, making it unique.   

• Knobs & Knockers is a hardware store exclusively full of door knobs, door knockers, and various types of handles. 
• What’s In A Name is a small hole-in-the-wall historical research center where visitors can find out the onomastics of their first or last names. 
• Clusters Handcrafted Popcorn sells diverse flavors of kettle corn. 
• Pepper Palace exclusively sells different flavors of hot sauce, all of which can be tasted before purchasing. 
• Lahaska Bookshop is a bookstore that proudly had a sign in front saying “We Sell Banned Books”. 
• Extra Virgin and Sticky Situations are two combined shops that sell and display unique flavors of olive oil and honey, which are available for visitors to taste-test. 
• Bucks County House of Jerky sells different types of jerky, ranging from Kangaroo to Crocodile. 

My favorite shop in all of Peddler’s Village is Fehrenbach Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks and Gifts. The store itself is 3 stories, but it really doesn’t feel all that big. The lower floor had different Christmas ornaments and a wall of wooden crosses. Going up the stairs to the top floor, I saw a wall of “Bierkrugs”, or beer steins. The main floor is split in half, the right side full of different types of candies, and the left side full of ticking cuckoo clocks. Countless handmade, delicately crafted cuckoo clocks are hanging on the shop’s walls. Even the extremely high prices of the clocks seem well deserved for these beautiful hand-crafted creations. 

The Cloak and Wand is a specialty shop that was an almost direct copy from the Harry Potter franchise. Walking into the shop, visitors immediately see a small bar with multiple workers and a massive menu of different novelty drinks with puns for names; “Resting Grinch Face” (a salted caramel milk hot chocolate), “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” (a custom soda with cranberry, pomegranate, and lime), and “Abuelita Got Run Over By A Reindeer” (a dark hot chocolate with cinnamon and vanilla), all names referencing popular Christmas movies. 

At the shop, I got a plain dark hot chocolate. During the wait for them to make it, I walked around the store, a clever business decision. There was a small back hallway designed to resemble a haunted house with broken animatronics that were supposed to jump and make noises. There was a tattered broomstick hanging from the ceiling and on top of every shelf there were numerous colored bottles, presumably supposed to be potions.

When my hot chocolate came, there was a recipe on the cup listing the ingredients: “Extra dark hot chocolate, Griffin whipped cream, Basilisk eggs, #18 Psychic potion – Animal communication”. The Cloak and Wand heavily leans into the fantasy element of their shop. The hot chocolate was rich and creamy, a welcomed warmth on the freezing winter day; however, it did not grant me the ability to communicate with animals as it claimed, so I got scammed. 

Peddler’s Village is a great place to go on a day trip with family and friends, whether you go for the specific holiday events or the regular year-long shops, and I had a very enjoyable time. The bustling brick pathways are certainly more full during winter, but it’s for a reason. The quaint aesthetic of the Village where the visitors slowly uncover the quirkiness of each individual shop makes for a great time.