Rotary Merchants Put Out Holiday Welcome Mat

With hot cider, cookies and open doors, the Westborough rotary will feel like a neighborhood this Sunday afternoon.

Merchants in this business district are sponsoring a holiday stroll from noon to 6 p.m. There will be hot cider and cookies, as well as special discounts, She's a Gem owner Carole Judge says.

At least 12 to 15 businesses will be open “so we can greet each other’s customers, make new customers, but just show that we have all different, eclectic businesses, and there’s for something for everyone in each shop,” she says.

“We all got together and said, ‘What can we do that would be the most successful push for our holiday season, in addition to Small Business Saturday?’ Judge says.

“I think what we saw Small Business Saturday was so many people are happy to get back to the local business shopping – they don’t want to go to the malls. So, we said, ‘Let’s keep it going, and let’s have our holiday stroll.’”

The rotary businesses' last holiday stroll was five years ago, “and it got placed on the back burner," says Judge, who opened here four years ago.

“One of the things that I wanted to do when we came in was to make sure we got it on the front burner,” she says.

Customers who have heard about Sunday's event have compared it to “being in the old town, where you can walk around and meet your friends and be outdoors," Judge says.

"I think it will become a tradition,” she says.