Too Soon for Christmas?

The effort put in to the Christmas market and celebration was rewarded today with what was one of the busiest Christmas events of its type, in modern times. The mild and dry weather helped. The children's performance in St Peter's also assisted—with primary aged youngsters you usually find there come parents. So, 30 stall on the Square, some entertainment thereon, free car parking, lots of people and a great atmosphere in which you could (literally in my case) bump into people whom you haven't seen for ages and we had something of Christmas Eve come early, especially with all the associated traffic chaos. What could go wrong?

Well, Rhuthun/Ruthin's been forced to celebrate its Christmases even before Advent starts. That's because from next month the lure of larger shops will inevitably drag people away from town.

And shopkeepers, it's no good complaining that the market sucks people from town to St Peter's Square. These are residents & visitors who otherwise would be tempted elsewhere on such a crucial pre-Christmas shopping day.

And although people in town dipped a little after lunchtime, there were increasing numbers thereafter, to the point where, after about 3 p.m., the town was unrecognisable for a usually dead Saturday afternoon.Streets were no longer deserted, as families wandered around. Even more were walking up Clwyd and Well Streets at the prospect of the late afternoon's entertainment on the Square. Once again, Christmas Eve sprang to mind, or the busy days of the 1960s & 1970os, before we all began driving off to retail parks.

There is a price to pay for all this unusual activity and it's this: watch out during the next three Saturdays, as shoppers drop alarmingly. But, hopefully, businesses have turned a penny or two. What Rhuthun did today was reinvent itself by drawing in spending power while it could. It recognised that it cannot dare compete with shops and the internet but it does have something to offer. Isn't that what the larger retail world accomplished yesterday with this new fangled thing called Black Friday? I reinvention to get us to spend? And the numbers in Rhuthun today were in spite of Black Saturday or the Black Friday weekend.

Talking of black shopping days, did anyone notice how quiet things were yesterday, so-called Black Friday? I wouldn't say deserted but the town was strangely quiet for a normally busy Friday. It's difficult to assess how many people exchanged work for holidays but the towns car parks saw fewer cars and county hall car park had spaces, which is unusual.

After the excitement of the market itself came the tree switch-on and the evening entertainment. I am not sure why everyone gets so worked up about the tree lights, but there you are. The numbers present easily exceeded the last two years' parades (it was probably double) and, in more recent years, you'd be fortunate to see a hundred people gathered on the Square. I didn't stay long to see the entertainment, for which the Square had been blocked off, so cannot comment beyond 6 p.m. It was a long enough day.

One observation about the lights switch-on: the parades were followed by community carol singing led by the Warden, Revd Stuart Evans. Although by no means all took part, this was at least a nod towards Christmas. With bands on stage, that seems to have done for a ball of chalk.

And try finding a pack of Christmas cards with a nativity scene. There was one (only) at yesterday's St Peter's Church fair, aimed at children; and one other, in Siop Nain. That was all. To think of Rhuthun owes so much to its non-conformist Christian heritage... all but wiped away by today's Black Friday insanity.