Beauty-services businesses are off limits for me, generally. I don’t write about hair salons, almost ever, because there are so many  that it’s impossible to give them equal coverage. The same goes for pet-grooming places.

I am making an exception here because this is not really about grooming.

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Doesn’t that look nice? I noticed it coming out of Dollar General Family Dollar Saturday, and for a moment, I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie called “A Doghouse for Christmas,” in which a dog groomer is the unlikely soul who reminds the whole town of The True Meaning of Christmas, with the unwitting help of a wise-beyond-his-years orphan and a skeptical TV news reporter whose failed romances and tragic barrenness have hardened her against life’s simple pleasures. Anyway, I thought it looked quaint and Christmas-y and happy ending-ish just for a second, is what I’m trying to say.

In case you don’t recognize it, this is Cannon’s Village, the 1923 retail building at West Davis and Edgefield. The building made the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League’s list of architecture at risk this year because its biggest tenant, West Davis Dental, moved to Bishop Arts a few years ago. Tienda Choris, a grocery tenant that occupied part of the building for a couple of years, has moved to Jefferson. The building’s owners live out of state.

The 90-year-old building is unique and even iconic in Oak Cliff, but it’s mostly empty now. It’s not dilapidated, but it obviously needs attention. Oak Clips, with a little paint and elbow grease, gives us a glimpse into what could be. Maybe the owner secretly is an elf or the Ghost of Christmas Past, come to Save Christmas? Or at least, show us the True Value of Retail Space in our community?