New Christmas Festival readies for shoppers

La Conner residents: Prepare to share the shopping district and the holiday season with out of town visitors. The new business advocacy organization, OPAL (Organized Patrons Advancing La Conner) has created a “Tinsel and Mistletoe Christmas Festival” for the first two weeks of December and are planning that it will become an annual event.

The business district will sprout Christmas green and red and be decorated in tinsel, while 40 utility poles will be wrapped in red and white candy cane striping, explained co-organizer Christie Eichler, owner of The Scone Lady bakery. With Kim Broadhead, owner of Stompin Grounds, the two have recruited 50 businesses on Morris and First Streets “to participate by putting up a beautiful tree or window,” Eichler said.

OPAL is promoting this festival of decorated shops in the western Skagit Valley, inviting people to start at The Scone Lady or Stompin Grounds with a free cup of hot apple cider and to pick up a map and a ballot to vote for the best decorated business. The winner will be awarded a brass plaque by OPAL, to be kept for a year until the winner of the second annual festival is chosen and the plaque moves to that shop.

“Visiting our quaint town all decked out with the trimmings of the season” is one of the best things about the holiday, OPAL’s flyer proclaims. The group is concerned that La Conner is perceived as a five month tourist town, unlike Leavenworth, which Eichler holds up as brightly lit all year long.

That is why she is candy stripping utility poles. “We don’t feel La Conner is doing all that it should be. People should want to come here because it is so exciting” is Eichler’s vision.

The Swinomish Casino has promised to bring buses of non-gambling spouses into town. The deal will be that merchants will give them a discount or at least a piece of candy when shown the casino’s club card.

Eichler is high on the potential for increased off-season tourism. OPAL has anteed up to make the season merry and bright. Now visitors and merchants have to meet and mingle.