Letter to editor: Hope to see you in Old Town Saturday

Hope to see you in Old Town Dec. 6

My wife and I drove up to Julian for lunch in mid-November and were pleasantly surprised to see all of the wonderful Christmas decorations that had the storefronts outlined in strings of lights, the fences and railings covered with green garlands with lights and red bows all over the place. It really looks like a holiday shopping wonderland.

The restaurants were all decorated with postings of special menus and holiday treats as well as green roping and lights and bows.

Boy, do we wish our own Ramona merchants would get a little (or a lot) more into encouraging our residents and visitors to Shop Ramona! We have never seen more than 10 percent of our Main Street area stores actually decorate their stores or encourage shoppers to do their Christmas shopping here in Ramona by offering sales and contests or having local Santas and musical groups playing holiday music in the area of their shopping centers or groups of storefronts.

These sales promotions are part of Marketing 101. The Chamber of Commerce is trying hard to bring the people downtown with the upcoming Christmas Tree lighting and Santa Claus visit on Saturday evening, Dec. 6, in Collier Park. They even recently fastened red bows to over 50 trees and light poles in the Old Town area of Main Street. That section will feature the Ramona Community Singers entertaining shoppers after the tree lighting by singing on the Town Hall steps while many of the merchants in the Old Town area will be open late with sales and some with refreshments for the eager shoppers.

These merchants, spurred on by Unicorn Books and Gifts shop owners Stacy Bart and Julia Dammeir, have made some nice attempts to decorate their stores in the holiday spirit and will also be running a “Find the Elf” contest with some nice prizes for the shoppers. These shops have been open Thursday evenings until 8 p.m. for the past few months.

We hope that our local merchants will get on board and do a little more to bring the small town holiday spirit to downtown Ramona. There is even a “Store/office window decorating contest” being sponsored by the chamber and Ramona Sentinel. All they have to do is decorate their operation and notify the chamber office that they are in the running for the prizes.

The level of participation by our merchants this year will probably help decide the future of downtown local shopping for Ramona residents for the immediate future. Hope to see you on Main Street on the evening of Dec. 6.

Charlie and Sandy Teichert

Ramona