Miracle Christmas Needed at The Angels Garden

Barb Meitz spends her days surrounded by angel statues, angel wings, angel trinkets, and angel bric-a-brac.

There are even gifts in her shop that bestow angel prayers on police officers, firefighters and soldiers.

That -- along with other religious figurines and religious-oriented wares -- has been Meitz' working environment for the past 10 years, the span of time she's owned in Eureka. Now, oddly enough, Meitz herself seems in need of angelic intervention.

"This year has been our worst year ever," Meitz said at the shop this week.  "I don't even know if I'll make it 11 years, because people are buying food; they're not buying things 'just because.'

"This time of year it should be bustling."

Even the store's three websites are lacking business, she said. "That used to pay the bills."

Business at the shop was indeed nearly non-existent. In maybe an hour's time, only one customer stopped in. The customer, a woman, was looking for a baby Jesus to replace one in a home nativity scene, something Meitz didn't have. But as opposed to many customers who come in and don't find what they're expressly looking for, the woman found something else to purchase before heading out the door.

Despite exhibiting a healthy humor, an undercurrent of reverie seemed palpable with Meitz. She told stories of people who had visited the business, their names and home locations documented in the store's visitor log. 

One customer hails from England. The customer stops by whenever she's in town to visit her mother, who's in a skilled nursing home, Meitz said.

A couple from Illinois stop in three or four times a year while on their way to the Lake of the Ozarks, she said. All the woman purchases are pins to add to a hat that's already weighed down with other pins.

"Her husband calls it her lethal weapon," said Meitz.

The atmosphere of Meitz' business apparently exerts an influence on nearly anyone who comes inside. Though people at times have complained about the shop's steep driveway, in all the years Meitz has been in business, she said, she's dealt with maybe three crabby customers.

"Someone came in the store one time and said, 'You're a little bit closer to heaven up here,'" Meitz said.

Meitz jokingly acknowledged that a large set of wings on the wall behind the business counter were those of Michael, the drinking, womanizing and rollicking angel played by John Travolta in the movie of the same name. And, no, "Michael" is not her favorite movie, she said.

"It was a good movie," she said, then laughed. "I would just hope my guardian angel wouldn't be like that."

Meitz said she favors more religious movies, but did admit a very good angel movie is "It's a Wonderful Life," the holiday classic where a guardian angel named Clarence intervenes in the life of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart. Clarence later goes on to get his angels wings, as suggested at the end of the movie when a bell rings on the Bailey home's Christmas tree.