Sequel to Bar Harbor Pajama Sale

After reading the papers about Black Friday sales, it made me think of our own Pajama Sale in another light. As I read about people waiting outside stores for hours to wildly rush in and grab whatever they could before items disappeared off shelves and altercations over who was in line first, it made me think that our walking around town in PJs is not so crazy after all.

Our Pajama Sale has a civility to it. True, most people are there for the sales, but the real draw is to dress up in your pajamas and shop and feel completely at ease doing so. There is a festive mood to our sale- not the frenzy that you read about or see on TV.

People stop and chat as they see friends and neighbors that were lost in the summer crowds. They discuss their plans for Thanksgiving and share the finds they found. Even Acadia National Park sells its annual passes at half-price off in appreciation of all the locals who support the park year 'round.

It's a time to support the local shops as well and feel good about doing so. Oh I could buy my books cheaper on Amazon but I prefer to support Sherman's Book Store and buy my Christmas cards, calendars, books and toys there. It's the sense of belonging to a community and doing what you can to keep local stores stay open after the tourist dollars fade away. After all this is our town and we have a pride about living here and keeping it a viable community.

I used to love to shop at Port in a Storm- a wonderful bookstore in Somesville outside of Bar Harbor. But they could not keep up with the competition from online stores and closed their doors last year to our dismay. Maybe if they had been embraced in the arms of our small town community they might have survived.

So you can go shop your big box stores and stand in lines with people you do not know and fight over merchandise, but I will take our small town sales supporting shopkeepers you know, rubbing elbows with friends and acquaintances and helping to sustain our year-round community.

Next up is our Midnight Madness sale the first Friday after Thanksgiving- and that has another whole mood to it. Stay tuned.

Local amusement now that the tourists have left

So what do we do in Bar Harbor now that all the tourists are mostly gone and the shops and restaurants are closing to escape to warmer weather? Well we take over the town and create our own amusements that still draw people outside of town.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we have our annual Pajama Sale- in fact this year we celebrated our 15th! The stores open at 6 AM and offer discounts to shoppers and to sweeten the pot, they give additional discounts if you dress in your PJs. Well to me the only way I am shopping that early is to just roll out of bed and throw on my long fleece robe and head out the door.

There is a festive spirit as people run about in their PJs and robes and often try to outdo each other with some of their outfits and favorite stuffed animal in tow. Now I don't do well that early in the AM and usually make it out about 7:30 to scout out what's around and then build my shopping list for the next sale- Midnight Madness- but more about that in a later post.

The stores offer hot drinks and goodies and people wander around from store to store scooping up the bargains. I find it a to be a type of coming out for the locals to meet and greet and reclaim the town for themselves after the hectic months of summer and fall tourists.

In an effort to extend this day, we now have a bed race down one of the main streets. People dress up old beds and themselves, put wheels on the beds and push and pull the beds down the street and back again in a timed race for the grand prize of $500!

By now it is 10:00 AM and folks in street clothes mingle with those in their PJs, nightgowns and robes- no one thinking that anything looks out of place with this scenario. It continues after the race is over and we all go about our normal Saturday morning chores- going to the town dump ( er- transfer station), supermarket and the PO. By that time being in your PJs seems normal and you wonder why some people are staring at you as you go about in total oblivion.

Yup, that is what we do when the tourists leave- our annual ritual of reclaiming the town in our own unique style!