Black Friday, Grand Marais-style

Grand Marais Christmas Parade. Photo Stephen Hoglund, Cook County Visitor Bureau

Thanks to the blogger Mikel from Caribou Highlands known online as "Voice of the Mountains" for the top five list of reasons to "Shore it up" for Thanksgiving. My favorite is reason #3, "No Black Friday". As the writer puts it, "There’s plenty of other chances to get trampled at a shopping mall."

I covered last year's Grand Marais Black Friday in a post here. Basically, it's another busy day in Grand Marais. No doorbusters. No five a.m. openings. The narrow aisles in Joynes are as crowded as ever, with stacks of Carhart pants threatening to fall on the stacks of Woolrich shirts as they compete for your holiday dollars. Yes there are sales, 10% off here, 20% off there. But no one will get trampled looking for a deal on Ragg wool socks.

The real fun of Black Friday kicks in at dark, with the Grand Marais Christmas Parade. Where else would you find a Christmas event themed "O Ole Night"? In what Twin Cities mall would you be encouraged to wear your best goofy Christmas sweater and join in the Uff Da parade? Only on the North Shore.