Men walking in downtown Saluda on Christmas Eve will be welcomed to Heartwood Gallery to celebrate “Man Day.”

“Man Day,” which began at the gallery a few years ago, celebrates men and their choice to wait until Christmas Eve to shop for their loved ones.

Heartwood Gallery’s owner said she and her employees began celebrating the tradition four years ago after a customer noticed the trend inside her store.

“Four years ago, one of our customers was watching us work and he said, ‘Wow, this is Man Day isn’t it?'” said Shelley DeKay, owner of Heartwood Gallery. “And we were like, ‘Yeah, this is,’ and so we’ve seen this tradition where men will buy a special gift for their sweetheart on Christmas Eve. I wish I could say it has history dating back to the ’30s but it was just something one of customers saw.”

Beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday morning, coffee and cookies will be offered to those who come in and shop Christmas Eve when the employees wrap their gifts.

“We’ll have coffee and cookies out back while they wait for us to wrap their presents,” DeKay explained.

Although the gallery has been open for 30 years, DeKay and her staff never considered it “Man Day” until the encounter with one of her customers.

“Generally, we have people waiting at the door for us to open at 10 in the morning on Christmas Eve, which is not a typical day to have men waiting at the door for you to buy presents,” DeKay said. “One of the things we’re known for is beautiful handmade jewelry and we hear all the time from men, ‘My wife expects one of your boxes under the tree and she will know there’s a pretty piece of jewelry in it.”

Dawson Cherry, who lives in Charleston, S.C., is the customer who coined the term “Man Day” four years ago after visiting Heartwood.

“I was at Shelley’s shop the day before Christmas,” Cherry said. “It was the last day you could buy something and Shelley had a rocking chair and beer on ice set up and customer after customer and customer shows up and, with us men, we don’t shop, we buy. The beautiful thing about Shelley’s shop is you go up, you say ‘I need something for my wife,’ and they point you to it and they wrap it up in a beautiful presentation and you’re done.”

This is not a major event, according to DeKay, but just something she likes to do for her customers.

“It’s just something we like to offer our customers,” DeKay said. “By Christmas Eve, we’re pretty tired around here but this makes it fun. We get the coffee from the Purple Onion, I put on some good music and we have cookies while we wrap presents.”

Cherry said the new tradition of Man Day works because every year, some men will wait until the last minute to do shopping.

“Guys every year, we do this,” Cherry said. “We need something good for our wives and Shelley has the perfect shop and all the nice stuff.”

Nancy Barnett is one of the employees who will be working at Heartwood on Christmas Eve.

“Well, it’s just a really good time for all of us,” Barnett said. “I know it’s Christmas Eve but we felt like working it. It’s a nice gathering place, festive and fun. The men are pretty focused when they come in to look for gifts and it’s just been a great tradition.”