Downtown Idaho Falls businesses host holiday open house

Sunday marked the beginning of the holiday shopping season for downtown Idaho Falls.

“This is a great way to start the holiday season,” Franki Browning, employee of Lemon Meringue, said.

Sunday was the holiday open house for many businesses in downtown Idaho Falls. It is a way to kick off holiday shopping, with many stores having sales. Marcellar’s wine bar has been having their holiday wine sale for the past 15 years.

“People like to stock up for the holidays and actually several months beyond that,” Marilynne Manguba of Marcellar’s said. “It started out with one of our distributors thought it was a great idea and it kinda just steamrolled.”

Many businesses have followed suit. Restaurants and stores that are usually closed on Sunday’s opened for the day, hoping to draw more people downtown.

“It’s the beginning of the holiday season,” Browning said. “And everybody should be downtown to do our wonderful, you know, everything in this store is 20 percent off. And it’s magical.”

Local shoppers were excited about the opportunity to shop downtown on Sunday.

“I like coming downtown because I like to support the local community,” Kay Moor, a local shopper, said. “I like the ease of walking from store to store. I’m not a big mall shopper so I would rather come downtown. And I appreciate the fact that they’re open on Sunday.”

The businesses hope today will show the importance of shopping local.

“Everybody should be downtown,” Browning said. “That’s the name of the game, downtown shopping.”

If you’re looking for some Christmas cheer downtown, they also have horse-drawn trolley rides on Saturday afternoons from 1 pp.m. to 3 p.m.