Saturday dawned with fresh snow and cold temperatures, but that didn’t keep shoppers away from the Downtown Missoula Partnership’s celebration of Small Business Saturday.

Executive Director Linda McCarthy said the inclement weather posed no problems.

“Small Business Saturday is a big event for our downtown,” said McCarthy. “We had a great turnout on Saturday, even though it was snowy. We gave away over a hundred bags within the first thirty minutes, we had shoppers all over downtown, we went through gallons of coffee and hot chocolate and gave out lots of flyers and promotions, and we also did a downtown Bingo game, and we’ll be drawing for the master prize on Tuesday.”

McCarthy said Small Business Saturday was tailor made for the downtown area.

“The downtown experience if warm and cozy and friendly, and our downtown retailers provide incredible customer service, and there are lots of places for food and beverages. We had thousands of people throughout the day shopping downtown.”

McCarthy said Small Business Saturday was just the beginning of the Christmas season for downtown.

“We have the 16th annual Parade of Lights this Saturday, December 1st, with Santa arriving at 1:00 p.m.,” she said. “The parade is as 6:00 p.m. with the lighting of the tree at 6:30 p.m. The Festival of Trees is happening, as well. It launches this Friday, November 30th and will go through Sunday, December 8th and it all kicks off with the Tour of Trees on November 30th.”

Get more details about Christmas events downtown here.

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