Small Business Saturday: The Local Celebrations

A number of SoCal neighborhoods spotlight their one-of-a-kind shops.

The joy of purchasing an item isn't fully in the item itself, or in the act of the purchase. Rather, a particular happiness can come weeks or even months later when you run into the person who sold it to you, and they remember and ask you how that dress/book/toy worked out.

It's that personal follow-up that's the special province of the mom-and-pop-eries of this world, and it is one of the reasons Small Business Saturday, of all the Thanksgiving weekend shopping days, comes with an extra emotional component: The feeling of local love, a feeling sought after by people eager to support the shop down the road.

Introduced by American Express in 2010, the movement is no longer simply about finding one-off deals inside locally helmed stores. Streets and neighborhoods now mark the day with special doings, and a number of SoCal nooks will participate on Saturday, Nov. 29 on a wider, beyond-the-shops level.

Those include...

Long Beach: A "Makers Market, live music, shop discounts, a photo booth, free bike valet, and more" are the hallmarks of this partnership between the city's East Village shops and the Downtown Long Beach Associates. As for a full street being shuttered to traffic? That's 1st, between Elm and Linden avenues. Hours? 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Montana Avenue: The Santa Monica thoroughfare looks pretty convivial come Christmas, but it starts out the yuletide shopper stretch with a Nov. 29 small-business-y to-do. Live music is a feature of the day, which'll spotlight deals along the M.A. from 6th to 17th streets. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Eagle Rock: This two-boulevard confab comes with its own catchy, all-caps name -- WE HEART EAGLE ROCK BLOCK PARTY! -- and a caboodle of outside-of-the-shopping happenings, from a family zone to arts-and-crafts-makery. It's year four for the Eagle Rock bash, a now longish Small Business Saturday local tradition.

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