Holiday Shopping 2023: That Personal Touch

For this installment of our local holiday shopping series, we visited Lynn van der Els, owner of That Personal Touch on Main Street.

Here’s a transcript of our conversation. 

***

New Canaanite: Please give us some background on That Personal Touch and tell us what you offer here.

Christmas ornaments from Pilgrim Imports Inc. ($35 apiece) at That Personal Touch, 102 Main St. Credit: Michael Dinan

Lynn van der Els: My mom and I started the business 40 years ago, we just celebrated our 40th anniversary on November 4th. She passed away 11 years later, and then I met my husband Mitch, and he came into the business with me, and he became the engraver. I used to be the engraver, and my mom would do all the book work, so we reversed roles. He took over the engraving, and I do all the book work and ordering. Everything we sell is engravable. We have a variety of frames, baby gifts, clocks, jewelry, Christmas ornaments for this time of year. We do hot stamping, leather monogramming. Everything is done on the premises. We offer one day service. We do outside work, too. When somebody comes in and they want something engraved, we do that, which is a big plus, because a lot of people have things they want done and no one else will do it. So that’s huge. 

What are some of the things that people are coming in looking for?

Annual Reed + Barton bell, Christmas 2023 ($36), can be personalized, at That Personal Touch, 102 Main St. Credit: Michael Dinan

Christmas ornaments. The musical carousels and ferris wheels have been doing very well. They’ve been coming in looking for the Reed + Barton Christmas bell. It’s the annual 2023 bell. A lot of people are coming in with their own items like perfume bottles or money clips, wallets to be engraved and hot stamped. We do a lot of outside work, as well, during this time of year because people will come in with odd pieces that no one else will do.  We offer one-day service, we offer a week turnaround, and we also offer a rush service. If something has to be done in a day, we will do it. Same day service.

You must be one of the best established businesses downtown.  You’ve been operating for 40 years. Have you always been in this space? 

Bamboo cutting board, engraveable ($48), engraving is generally $25 for a monogram, at That Personal Touch, 102 Main St. Credit: Michael Dinan

We started down on 1 East Avenue, in the same building, just around the corner. We were there for four-and-a-half years. And then this opportunity opened up for us. So we decided to move up here and we’ve been here ever since. 

What’s it like being a business owner in downtown New Canaan during the holiday season?

It’s great. It’s hustle-bustle. The people in New Canaan are great to work with. We’ve established a nice rapport. We’re on a first name basis, which is really nice. They’re just lovely people to work with. And they enjoy supporting the locals, which keeps us here, and that’s very important.  

Reed + Barton 5-by-7-inch silver-plated, beaded frame ($100), at That Personal Touch, 102 Main St. Credit: Michael Dinan

For people who have seen  the name of the shop or gone by, but don’t know what you do inside here because they haven’t had a chance to stop in, what would you say about That Personal Touch? 

We offer a lot of nice gifts for every occasion. We offer the engraving, as I mentioned one-day service, which is a plus. It’s one-stop shopping. You can buy a gift, have it engraved, have it wrapped. We also offer greeting cards. And they can take their gift and go with a smile.

That Personal Touch at 102 Main St. (here on Instagram and Facebook) is open every day in December: Mon-Fri 10-5:30, Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5.