Shopping during the holiday season can be a nightmare. Downtown Durango has gone out of its way to offer an alternative to big box shopping torture. On December 4, over 90 downtown merchants will be participating in Noel Night. It actually lasts all day and participating members have created their own store incentives including discounts, refreshments, entertainment and more.

Sponsored by Local First, which is a non-profit organization comprised of locally owned, independent businesses in La Plata County. Now, I know I am supposed to shop local and I’m sure we have all heard of Small Business Saturday which was to help promote small business after the chaos that is Black Friday. But the Local First website has an interesting breakdown of what this really means to the local community.

• $100 spent in a locally owned, independent business returns $73 back into the community
• $100 spent in a national chain only returns $43 to the community
• $100 spent online returns $0 to the local community

So come out to downtown Durango and get your Christmas shopping list completed while also helping the local collective. Some private parking lots will be open to the public, there will be free metered parking after 5pm and of course, when you book your room at the Quality Inn Durango , you can catch the trolley. It will be running late until 10:00 p.m. A fun day of shopping, live music and entertainment is just what the doctor ordered to combat holiday stresses.