Surprise and Delight

Dec 03, 2025 08:45PM ● By Kelly Sennott Photography By Ian Raymond

The staff includes Sylvia Alberta, Bethany Druge (manager), Melissa Haas, Cheryl Nevers (manager), Caroline “B” Graubert, and Jellycat Bartholomew Bear.

Before Melissa Haas owned Lemon Tree Gifts, she was an opera singer, performing on stages all over the world. But all the while, she harbored another dream. “I just always had this idea that I wanted to have a little gift shop,” Melissa says. It wasn’t until 14 years ago that timing for this next venture felt right. She was recently married to her husband, John Haas, and had settled in the Upper Valley. Together, they began searching for vacant spaces and eventually opened Lemon Tree Gifts in Hanover in 2012.

Since opening, Melissa and John have seen highs and lows with the business, particularly the last five years, with a pandemic, the ever-present competition of the Internet, and a flood that closed one location for months in early 2025. This holiday season, to benefit the customers who’ve stuck around, Melissa says Lemon Tree will feature more new items and deals than ever before.

It might seem that running a gift shop is a far stray from her former life as a performer, but Melissa says the jobs are actually similar. Now, the store is her stage, and she designs an ambiance through fragrant scents and beautiful items that surprise and delight. “Singing was always about connecting with your audience,” Melissa says. “It was about feeling that I had reached people, that what I was doing was touching their soul. That connection? It’s the same thing here in the store.”

Openings, Closings, and Reopenings

Planting a lemon tree in your yard signifies good luck, which seemed to Melissa the perfect symbol for her business. After opening their first location in Hanover where Roberts Flowers now resides, they moved to Main Street in 2015, which Melissa says was “life changing.” A year and a half later, they opened a second location in the PowerHouse Mall. “Business was good, and I guess I have that entrepreneurial spirit. When I see an empty space, I go, ‘Oh my gosh, what I could do here!’ And I had a husband who was willing to take the risk with me, which meant a lot,” Melissa says.

The past five years have certainly thrown tests to Melissa and John: During the pandemic, Melissa was able to do some work from Hanover, but the PowerHouse location was closed entirely. Then, last year, the day after Christmas, a flood at the mall forced them to close the PowerHouse location again. Everything needed to be dismantled, and shipping issues with the new carpets stalled reopening until April.

“It’s taking time for the customers to figure out that we’re still here,” Melissa says. “But you find your will to keep going. Once we started putting the store back together, and I saw it come to shape again, I started getting excited about it.”

Ready for the Season

In the past, Melissa says she made the mistake of getting ready for the holidays too late. She thought you shouldn’t start Christmas preparations until after Thanksgiving. But in retail, you can’t think like that. Now they prepare for the gifting season months ahead of time.

The PowerHouse Mall location spans three storefronts and smells of flowers or Fraser fir depending on where you stand. Melissa highlights the variety of soaps and the wall of embroidered pillows decorated with different colleges and states. “We’ve carried them since day one. People love them,” she says.

There’s a display of soft robes, patterned overalls, zip-up hoodies decorated with cats, and an assortment of socks. Nearby are cards, games, puzzles, coffee table books, and stuffies you can microwave to make extra cozy.

They’ve expanded children’s items since the closure of Country Kids and Bonkers/Nature Calls in the mall. In the back of the shop you’ll find whimsical children’s umbrellas hanging from the ceiling, and on the shelves are toys, doll houses, Jellycats, books, and tiny mice dressed as ballerinas and superheroes.

Melissa says she works hard to keep the store stocked with unique and delightful items, traveling to Georgia twice yearly for the Atlanta Market and attending regional shows in New England and New York. When buying, “I go with my gut. Sometimes I might go in looking for something specific, but most of the time, I want to be surprised,” she says.

In-Person Magic

These days, more and more people holiday shop online, but Melissa says when you do this, you miss out on the serendipity and delight of visiting in person. You also miss out on that interpersonal connection; Bethany Druge, manager at the PowerHouse Mall’s Lemon Tree location, says she’s found some of her interactions with customers very touching.

“One customer is so sweet; one day she came in and she said, ‘You look a lot happier today. I noticed that the last few times I’ve come in, something was a little off.’ My grandmother had passed,” Bethany says. “It was the sweetest, that a customer remembered me and my demeanor.”

Keeping the place thriving is more than full-time work—John holds another full-time job while running the business with Melissa—but Melissa says they still find so much joy at Lemon Tree. She enjoys curating the collection, making the place beautiful, and meeting the store’s visitors. They love that Lemon Tree has become part of the fabric of the Upper Valley and that people continue to support it. “I had no idea it was going to be as successful as it is,” Melissa says. “That’s been a blessing and a surprise.”