KINGSTON -- Mattern's Floral and Gifts in Kingston is going out of the business, but the Mattern family hopes that doesn't mean the shop will close its doors for good.
Around Christmastime last year, when the Mattern family was preparing for their busiest season at the shop, Maria Mattern and her husband Tom decided it was time to retire.
"I don't know what happened, but at that point kind of decided that was the last Christmas I wanted to do," Mattern said.
Mattern's first opened as a flower shop in 1907 in Wilkes-Barre. For 110 years, three generations of Matterns have kept up with the shop. When the industry changed, so did Mattern's, starting to offer more than just flowers, but gifts too.
"We try to offer unique things and make it very special when people come in the store," Mattern explained.
"I think people come here, it's one of the most beautiful shops in all of northeastern Pennsylvania, and it's really sad to see it closing. I think they're going to do really well. I wish them well," Sharon Cosgrove of Wilkes-Barre said.
Cosgrove has been going to Mattern's for as long as she can remember. It has always been her go-to spot if she needed flowers for a special occasion, or even if she just needed to smile.
"It's the kind of place that even if you just need to cheer yourself up, you can walk in here and see a lot of really lovely, beautiful things and they decorate for the seasons," Cosgrove said.
The Matterns say ideally, they'd like to sell the whole business, but if that doesn't work out, they would just sell the building.
"I think a lot of our customers would really like that, if we could continue the flower shop and gift shop. Will that happen? I'm not sure," Mattern said.
She married into the Mattern family. She says the floral shop has taught her so much about herself and about her customers in northeastern Pennsylvania.
"I can be creative and people enjoy that and I have something to offer, and just how kind people are," Mattern said.
Maria and Tom Mattern say they work together seven days a week, 365 days a year. They will officially retire on September 30.