2 days ago | Advertorial | Dana Whitcomb

“After 47 Christmases, my eyes are telling me to stop.” Why a 74-year-old woodcarver from North Carolina is selling his last wooden reindeer online – for the first and the last time

For almost half a century, Frank Ledbetter has carved little sitting reindeer behind his house in Hayesville, North Carolina – and sold them only at the town’s Christmas craft fair. Never in a store, never online. Now his eyesight is failing, the workshop closes on December 15, and his granddaughter has put his last reindeer online. Just this once.

Frank Ledbetter (74) in his workshop in Hayesville. These are the last reindeer he will ever carve.

Hayesville, November. The first frost lies on the ridges above Lake Chatuge, and the little workshop behind the Ledbetter house smells of fresh wood shavings, linseed oil and strong coffee. On the long workbench stand two dozen reindeer in a row – some still rough from the knife, some already smooth, a few waiting for the last and finest step: the face. Frank Ledbetter sits down on the same stool he has used every November morning since 1979. This year is different. This is the last one.

“I’m 74,” he says, and taps the frame of his glasses. “The eye doctor calls it macular degeneration. The middle of everything I look at has gone soft and blurry. I can still rough out a body by feel. But the face – the eyes, the little nose, that look – you have to see exactly where the knife goes. That’s the part my eyes won’t do any more.” He is quiet for a moment. “And the world has changed. Everything comes out of a factory now. Folks have forgotten what a thing feels like when a person made it.”

47 Christmases, more than 9,600 reindeer – and not a single one sold online

It started with a baby and a scrap of wood. In the fall of 1979, Frank was a cabinetmaker who built kitchens for half of Clay County. His daughter Lisa was born that October. “I wanted to make her something for her first Christmas,” he says. One evening he took an offcut from a cabinet job and carved a little reindeer sitting on its haunches, legs stretched out in front, with a long, kind face. Visitors saw it on the mantel and asked if he could make one for them.

That December he took twelve to the Christmas craft fair on the courthouse square. They were gone by noon. Every year since, Frank has stood at the same table with his reindeer – and every year they sold out before the fair closed. “People asked me a hundred times about a website,” he laughs. “I always said: if you want one, come to Hayesville.” More than 9,600 reindeer have left his workshop that way. Not one of them was ever sold online.

The face is always last – and the hardest part. After 47 years, Frank still holds his breath for the eyes.

What makes Frank’s reindeer so special

On the mantel, every little carving mark catches the light from the window.

At first it is the face. A long, gentle nose, two small dark eyes and that slightly curious look, as if the little reindeer has just heard sleigh bells somewhere outside. He sits the way a young reindeer really rests in the snow – back straight, front legs stretched out, hooves on the ground. People pick him up, and almost everyone smiles.

Then you notice the surface. The whole body is covered in small, uneven carving marks, so the light falls on him differently from every side and no two reindeer look exactly alike. The pale wood is left warm and natural. Only the antlers and the hooves are stained a darker brown, as if he has just come in from the forest.

Each reindeer stands 8½ inches tall and about 5 inches wide, so he fits on a mantel, a windowsill, a bookshelf or between the candles on the dining table. He needs no batteries and no plug, and he doesn’t wear out. “You set him out on the first of December and you put him away after New Year’s,” Frank says. “And next year he comes back out. That’s the whole idea.”

“Some of my reindeer have been on the same mantel for 40 Christmases”

Frank pulls an old coffee can from the shelf above his workbench. It is stuffed with Christmas cards. “From customers,” he says. “Some of them have written to me every single year.” He picks one out, dated December 1986: “Dear Mr. Ledbetter, the reindeer you carved for us stood on our mantel the year our son was born. Now he sets it out himself on the first of December. It is always the first thing we unpack.” There are hundreds like it. Many end the same way: see you at the fair next year.

The reason they last that long is simple: time instead of speed. A factory turns out a thousand figures in an afternoon. Frank makes one reindeer over about six hours – roughing out the body, carving the legs and antlers, cutting the face, staining the hooves, oiling and checking every piece. “If you rush the antlers, they snap,” he says. “So I don’t rush.”

The last shelf: 287 finished reindeer. After these, the workshop in Hayesville goes dark.

Why this Christmas is the last one

On December 15, Frank will sweep the floor one more time, hang his carving knives on the wall and switch off the work lamp for good. There is nobody to take over. “Lisa is a nurse down in Asheville, she has her own life,” he says. “And you can’t learn this from a video. It takes years before your hands know what they’re doing.” On the shelves stand exactly 287 finished reindeer – his final collection. The last ones that will ever pass through his hands.

This year there will be no table at the fair. His eyes can’t take a long day in the cold any more. So for the first time in 47 years, Frank has said yes to the internet – once. His granddaughter Megan (24) has photographed the last reindeer and put them online. “Grandpa always said no,” she says. “This time I asked him: do you want them sitting in boxes, or on people’s mantels?” Every reindeer now goes out at a special price, half of what Frank asked at the fair. “I don’t need to get rich on the last ones,” he says. “I want them in homes where somebody unpacks them every December.”

The name, by the way, comes from Megan too. When she was four, she pointed at the reindeer lined up on the workbench and said: “They’re all waiting for Christmas.” Since then the whole family has called them Waiting Reindeer.

What sets Frank’s Waiting Reindeer apart:

Every reindeer starts as a plain block of wood. The first hour is all knife and shavings.

What customers say about their Waiting Reindeer

“The present that made my dad go quiet”

Customer Patricia L. (49) from Greenville, South Carolina, gave one to her father last Christmas. “Dad is 82 and impossible to buy for. He has everything and needs nothing,” she says. “He unwrapped the reindeer, turned it over in his hands for a long time and didn’t say a word. Then he told me his own father used to whittle animals just like that on the porch. Now it sits on the shelf next to Granddad’s photo. It was the best present I’ve ever given him.”

A Waiting Reindeer under the tree: for many families, a present that comes back out every December.

Where can you get Frank’s reindeer?

Frank’s reindeer are only available through County Craft – an online shop that works with small, independent makers. Megan looks after her grandfather’s little corner of the shop. Only there will you get the original Waiting Reindeer from Frank’s workshop. Mass-produced lookalikes have started to appear on Amazon and the big shopping sites. From a distance they may look similar. Up close, they have nothing to do with Frank’s work.

Only until December 15 – then the workshop closes

“By the 15th I’d like every one of them to have found a mantel,” Frank says, wrapping a reindeer in tissue paper. “After that, it really is the end.” He looks out at the frost on the ridge. “47 Christmases. It was a good run.”

If you would like one of the original Waiting Reindeer from Frank’s final collection, don’t wait too long. With the special price and the Christmas rush, the remaining 287 reindeer are not expected to last until the workshop closes. Anything left after December 15 will still go out while stocks last – but after that, there will be no more.

It is the last chance to bring a piece of real handwork into your home – before the work lamp in Hayesville goes out for good.

Our verdict

Frank’s Waiting Reindeer is the kind of Christmas decoration people fall for at first sight and then unpack year after year. Carved by hand in a small workshop in the North Carolina mountains, with a face you can’t help smiling at and a warm wooden glow as soon as the candles are lit.

A piece with real heart – thought through, carefully made, with 47 years of experience in every cut. And the last chance to bring one home. Thank you, Frank!

Readers love their Waiting Reindeer

Photos sent in by readers.