Murphy to Manteo: Finding new adventures, historic detours, and the soul of North Carolina on the state’s longest highway: U.S. Route 64. Read the series.

I’m stuck in the past — literally. I’ve accidentally wedged myself into a corner, surrounded by Christmas trees twinkling with vintage ornaments and shelves stacked precariously with ceramic snowmen. I’m too afraid to turn — afraid I’ll hear the clunk-plink-shatter of something delicate. I gingerly slink out of the booth and breathe a sigh of relief as the aisle opens up.

But there are aisles within aisles here, and they’re all overflowing with every antique imaginable: tobacco baskets and baseballs, Pyrex dishes and porcelain teapots, rocking chairs and records. I’ve definitely lost all sense of time. I’m pretty sure I’m physically lost, too. Considering that Collector’s Antique Mall comprises 35,000 square feet inside the old B.C. Moore department store and Big Bear Supermarket, being lost isn’t out of the question. The store might just go on forever.

Festive decorations usher shoppers through Asheboro’s Sunset Avenue during the holiday season. photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

I thought I’d come prepared. I’d cruised through the bucolic countryside in Chatham and Randolph counties with a destination: downtown Asheboro, home to three major antiques shops on the same stretch of Sunset Avenue. With each antiques store I passed on U.S. Highway 64 — Paynes Stained Glass in Pittsboro, Countryside Collectibles in Siler City, Blue Horseshoe Antiques & Collectibles in Ramseur — my excitement grew. So many treasures just waiting to be found! If I have time, I thought, I’ll stop at each shop on my journey back.

Ah, the naive optimism of an inexperienced antiques picker.

• • •

This all started with a sled. My mom can’t remember exactly where the old wooden Speedaway came from. Did a former neighbor pass it along? Did she pick it up at a yard sale in Raleigh, where she and my dad lived just after they got married? In any case, the Speedaway — with its rusty steel runners and faded red paint, a model made by Gladding in, we think, the 1970s — used to help deck our halls at Christmastime, adorned with a big red bow. I remember pretending to race down an imaginary hill in our living room, and I once begged Mom to let me use it for real in 2000, when nearly two feet of snow fell at our house in Rougemont in northern Durham County.

Passed among the author’s kin — and likely other families before that — retro pieces like this Speedaway sled become treasured heirlooms. photograph by Charles Harris

When my husband and I moved into our first home in Cary a few years ago, Mom passed the sled on to me. Now, each December, I pull it out of the shed and prop it up by the front door, and as I carefully adjust the bow, I linger for a moment. There’s just something about it: It’s a nostalgic nod to Christmases past — my family’s, of course, but strangers’, too. Before it was a holiday decoration, the sled was probably a beloved toy. A present under the tree on Christmas morning. A child’s trusty companion on gleeful snow-day adventures.

It also suits our old ranch-style house, which was built in 1966 and has a bit of mid-century charm. Which got me thinking about shiny aluminum Christmas trees with glass ornaments and tinsel. My son, James, will be a little over a year old this Christmas, and I want to make his world sparkle. Sure, I could find replicas online, but I’ve always been drawn to an item’s past lives. The magic it has provided to someone before you.

Downtown Asheboro, just a quick detour off Highway 64 and with an abundance of antiques shops — Collector’s Antique Mall, Antiques & Geeks Collectibles on Sunset, and the Flea Marketeers being just a few — seemed to be the perfect day trip for my retro-holiday mission.

• • •

All of this is to say that while I am, admittedly, an antiques novice, I came here with a goal and a mental list of a few very specific items. I’ve been in antiques stores before, and I know the danger to one’s time and wallet if you don’t stay on task. My plan was to quickly do a walk-through of each of the shops on Sunset Avenue. But antiques stores — and antiques malls in particular, with their dozens or even hundreds of vendor booths in a large, collective space, as opposed to a single dealer — don’t accommodate plans. They scoff at your plan. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have started with the antiques mall.

So here I am, still at my first stop, sweating, with a basket full of old books and a clay jug (this is Randolph County, after all). I’ve also grabbed a single ornament — a so-ugly-it’s-cute raccoon carrying a backpack, a compass, and a hiking stick — that is most definitely not mid-century modern. Dazed, I check my watch and wonder how I came to be standing here with none of the items on my mental list. Wasn’t I just surrounded by Christmas decor? Was that downstairs or on the third floor? I underestimated the power of this place. I don’t have the willpower to not look at everything. Overwhelmed, I’m just about to avert my gaze and run for the exit.

And that’s when I spot it.

One-year-old James will be surprised to find a handmade workbench that Santa plucked from the aisles of Collector’s Antique Mall in Asheboro. photograph by Charles Harris

A few booths away, a splash of bright red peeks out from behind a table. There, I find a child-size workbench that barely reaches my knee. Not a cheap plastic toy, but one handmade out of wood, its legs and sides painted red. It even has a shelf with holes for hanging tiny tools. It has certainly been loved well — its surface is pocked and marred by hammer marks and nails and scratches and paint drips — and that’s why I immediately fall in love with it. In an instant, I imagine the father or grandfather who made it, which makes me think of my grandpa, tinkering in his workshop. I imagine a little boy who wanted to be just like his daddy, a pencil tucked behind his ear and carpenter’s rule in the pocket of his overalls.

I imagine that little boy is James.

Forget decorations, I think as I pluck it up and start making my way to the checkout. I’ve just found his first present! Plans are already swirling in my head when I realize that I’ve just learned the No. 1 rule of antiques shopping: The shop tells you what you need. You just have to be willing to slow down and see the magic.

On Christmas morning, James will wake up to this very special workbench from Santa, complete with wooden tools — miniatures of the ones in his dad’s workshop — and adorned with a big red bow. It’s one-of-a-kind, yes. But there’s something else about it that you simply can’t buy at a big-box store: The love built into it — and the lessons learned over it — will live on.

Collector’s Antique Mall
211 Sunset Avenue
Asheboro, NC 27203
(336) 629-8105
collectorsantiquemall.com

More to Explore: Discover five can’t-miss antique stores in Randolph County at ourstate.com/randolphcountyantiques.