By Charly SHELTON

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. Stores across America open early on Black Friday, and some on Thanksgiving afternoon, with door buster deals and heavy discounts on almost everything. It’s the day that businesses stop being in the red and get in the black, financially. It can be a very dark day for retail workers and shoppers as well who brave the masses to save on Christmas must-haves – hence the name. But in Montrose, the negativity of Black Friday melts away to White Friday that includes a Christmas tree lighting, carolers, Santa Claus and all the merchants of the shopping park coming together to give shoppers a better alternative to running the Galleria gauntlet.

“White Friday was spectacular. We increased our chair seating in the street for the ceremony of the tree lighting and town lighting to 250 [seats this year] and I think next year we may have to double that,” said Dale Dawson, event coordinator for the Montrose Shopping Park Assn., which hosted the event. “We had probably 500 or 600 people standing around for this wonderful ceremony. We had a children’s carolers group that really hit it out of the park; they opened for the first 45 minutes and then we gave [the microphone] to Mayor [Vartan Gharpetian] who actually led the countdown to the tree lighting.”

During the event, many of the businesses chose to offer specials for shoppers – White Out the Sales Tax for White Friday. Each business chose its own promotion, so the selection and variety of sales spread across town. At 7 p.m., after the tree and town lighting, it was time for the main man of Christmas to make his annual appearance in Montrose.

“Once the tree was lit, we introduced Santa and he came strolling out onto the scene, took his throne and started seeing the line of children for photos and candy canes. So it all worked really well,” Dawson said. “As far as the snowblowers, we’ll probably continue to massage that – they were good but we could do better. We blew snow into the street from on high and had snowflakes dancing off the buildings. It was the best attended [tree and town lighting] that we’ve ever had and that seems to be growing every year.”

After the big rush on Black Friday/White Friday, Small Business Saturday followed. This annual retail day is focused on small businesses, and merchants across the country treat SBS as big retailers treat Black Friday.

“[On Black] Friday, we’re still up against the nonsense of the discount electronics and the people who stand in line Thanksgiving evening and wait all night. But by [Small Business] Saturday, those people have been satisfied and they come to Montrose, so it was great,” Dawson said. In addition to his duties on the MSPA board, Dawson also owns Mountain Rose Gifts.

“My business segment is very much Christmas-driven because we’re pretty much a Christmas shop. I was talking to Cindy Redmond who owns Twigs and Things, and we both think that, while White Friday was beautiful event-wise and went off without a hitch, sales were probably more driven through the big box stores and … we maybe didn’t get the hit we wanted [as retailers],” Dawson said. “But Small Business Saturday was huge. People apparently responded to the notion of Small Business Saturday because it really was way better than in years past. That, at least, is what I am hearing, and that’s what we saw.”

Over in La Cañada, the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse hosted a big Small Business Saturday event with a dozen authors and other guests to celebrate the day and entice people to stop in.

“It was fantastic, a lot of positive energy. We had a tremendous Friday – things going on here – so I think that brought in a lot of people,” said Gail Mishkin of Flintridge Bookstore. “We had about 12 different authors, four different dogs [and more], so people were coming for a variety of reasons. It seems like a lot of the people who are coming in did so specifically because they knew it was Small Business Saturday and they really wanted to show their support. It felt really good.”

Back in the Montrose Shopping Park, Once Upon a Time Bookstore held a Small Business Saturday event with author signings and specials as well. Early in the day, the shop was featured on the news and saw immediate results.

“Small Business Saturday was a fantastic success,” said storeowner Maureen Palacios. “We were included in a KTLA Morning News segment about [the Montrose Shopping Park], which brought immediate sales buyers. I had not even finished the filming of the live segment when people started calling to buy some of the items we mentioned.”

Montrose Shopping Park will continue to have special holiday offerings including horse-drawn carriage rides and visits from Santa and bands on each block of the shopping park each weekend through Dec. 23. For more information, visit ShopMontrose.com.

  Charly Shelton