Let there be lights
Downtown businesses respond to holiday initiative
SYDNEY — It didn’t take much to get Tori Horvath to take part in the Sydney Downtown Development Association’s challenge to businesses to brighten the shopping core with 30,000 Christmas lights.
It might take some work to get her to stop, though.
“I know people who don’t get their tree until the week of Christmas and I am like ‘Oh my good lord no.’ I am ready to go mid-November,” said the owner of the Boysenberry Boutique and Cafe on Charlotte Street.
“We’ve had so many people come in this year and say ‘Thank you.’ They were so happy to see Christmas stuff up. They were so in the mood to celebrate I think because of the way the year has gone.”
The cafe was among the first businesses to embrace the merchant association’s challenge to turn on 30,000 lights in the downtown core and kicked off the contest with a dazzling 3,400-light display.
The boutique and cafe is also decked out for the season with Nutcracker displays, a desk for children to write letters to Santa and plenty of wreaths.
Challenge Accepted When not decorating her own places, Horvath has been actively recruiting other merchants to light up their windows, too.
“A lot of them have really jumped in,” she said. “I think me coming out first with the big number really pushed them to try their best to beat me. It’s all been pretty awesome.”
As a result, downtown Sydney is just a light or two from reaching its lofty goal of 30,000 Christmas lights in downtown windows and you better believe they are counting.
Michelle Wilson, executive director of the association, said 22,000 lights were accounted for earlier this week and about 9,000 will soon be added to the growing tally.
The initiative has served to brighten moods during the holiday season and to bring people downtown to visit the shops.
“It’s a combination of people getting back to their roots and shopping local,” Wilson said. “The businesses are stepping it up with the lights to attract people and the fact that we really don’t want to travel. It’s all those things combined that I think are keeping us alive in downtown.”
Across Atlantic Canada, an added emphasis has been placed on shopping local as small businesses try to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking Local
Local businesses, more than ever before, are requiring a healthy dose of conscious consumerism to take hold, Jordi Morgan, vice-president, of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in Atlantic Canada, wrote in a column for SaltWire Network several weeks ago.
“As an organization representing some of the hardest hit of our small businesses, the CFIB is actively stressing the importance of shopping local through our #smallbusinesseveryday campaign and our annual Small Business Saturday,” he wrote.
“Our goal is to focus attention on the businesses that are depending on spending in the leadup to the holidays to help them through what promises to be a very difficult winter.”
Wilson said the impacts of these and other shop local initiatives are being felt in downtown Sydney.
“It is hard to put a blanket statement over everyone but one merchant, in particular, was in a week ago and they were saying they were surprised by the increase in their sales recently,” she said. “We always love to hear that.”
At Boysenberry, Horvath said lights in the window are bringing people inside who have not visited the shop before now. Many are bringing their kids to create letters to Santa and others enjoy telling stories about their memories of businesses that were once inside her building.
“It’s cool when that happens. I love that,” she said.