The Countdown to Christmas is back again, but this year for the first time, it will be run by the Kimberley and District Chamber of Commerce, after having been run previously by Chantel Delaney of Sprout Health Market.
This year the Chamber has brought back the passbook format for the eight days of sales, which run from Nov. 13 - 21. The passbook system was done in years past, but then done away with in favour of a one-night event. Daniel Holden, Chamber general manager, said that bringing back the passbook and spreading the event out over eight days made things safer with regards to COVID-19 protocols.
“We obviously changed that this year and made it over eight days to spread out the people coming in to do the shopping so it’s not a couple hundred people running around on the same night,” he explained.
“So all the deals that the shops are doing and the passbook stamp thing will go over eight days instead of one to lessen the risk of any issues there.”
Over the course of the eight-day event, shoppers will be treated to discounts, prizes and gifts. Plus, while shopping, if you get a stamp in your passbook from each participating business you can enter to win one of four shopping sprees put together by Kimberley’s downtown businesses.
The participating businesses are as follows:
Arrow & Axe
Bavarian Home Hardware
Black Dog Cycle & Ski
Bootleg Bike Co
Creme Cheese Shop
Great Canadian Dollar Store
Grow Tea + Elixir Corner
Kimberley Kritters
La Lune de Chocolat
Little Big Studio
Moody Bee
Mountain Grass Glass Studio
OU Tasting House
Over Time Beer Works
Purcell Outdoors
Sew Creative Chalet
Sprout Health Market
Talaria Footwear & Adornment
The Grater Good
Tomi Jane Boutique
Treehouse Toy Co.
Tumbled Earth
Twin Pines
Holden stressed the importance of shopping local, especially these days when local business has taken a hit due to the pandemic.
“We’re encouraging people to shop Kimberley, Marysville first, then Cranbrook and then online,” he said. “Amazon shopping doubled in three months at the start of COVID, which would normally take ten years to do, which is obviously great for Amazon, but we want to keep our shops going and the best way to do that is to shop locally.
“Kimberley and district is lucky that we’ve got such a good range of shops and boutique shops,” he continued. “It’s not all the generic stuff. This is a really important time for a lot of small businesses in town, having lost a lot of tourists in the early stages of COVID for sure.”
Holden said the response from the local business community has been very positive.
“All the businesses know, fall can generally be a bit of a slow period,” Holden said, “but the Christmas shopping and the support from the local community for these sort of events is normally quite high.”
paul.rodgers@kimberleybulletin
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