Bend’s First Friday in December rings in the holiday season
Spencer Sacks
(UPDATE: adding video and quotes from Sarah Swartz, Suzy Reininger, and Sarah Roberts)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The holiday season is in full effect as a packed downtown bend celebrates First Friday.
As the calendar turns from November to December, businesses and residents are gathering their holiday gifts and getting ready for the holidays.
On the first Friday in Bend, businesses stay open later to bring in the month.
Sarah Swartz, the owner of Wildflower, told KTVZ, “we’re seeing a lot of people out for first Friday, so, it’s fun to have the energy and despite the fact that we don’t have snow, it seems to be going pretty well so far.”
Snow plays a big factor on tourism in Central Oregon. Thousands of people flock to the mountains nearby. But with the limited snowfall, we haven’t had that tourism bump that helps small local business.
So how are local business fairing?
“Actually, it’s been amazing. Lots of super, happy, people visiting from out of town,” Suzy Reininger, the owner of Leaping Lizards Toy Company told KTVZ. “Then, our locals are saying we are shopping local this year, so thank you.”
Sarah Roberts, the owner of Oregon Body and Bath told KTVZ, “you know, I don’t think it’s impacted us much at all. It’s been busy. We’ve got a lot of customers coming in every day, so I don’t know that it’s impacted us very much.”
We are now just a few short weeks from the holidays but Swartz, Roberts, and Reininger told KTVZ that gifts and flowers have been flying off the shelves.
Reininger told KTVZ they have already had to reorder more toys to fill the demand.