Lots of activities coming up this month

November is an especially busy month in Weiser as the holiday season gets underway. 

 With the acrimonious midterm election behind us, we can look forward to activities that lift our spirits and bring us together. 

 No, engaging in the conspicuous consumption of  Black Friday shopping is not one of them. 

 Actually, Black Friday doorbusters at the mall and big box stores are a bit dated anymore. Black Friday will probably take a backseat to the growing popularity of CyberMonday.  

 Why go out in the cold when you can order all those gifts with the click of a mouse and have them delivered to your front door? 

 Personally, I have never felt the desire to get up at 4 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, drive to the mall or Best Buy, and stand in line for some electronic device that is on sale. My loss, I guess.

 I read where Amazon members will get free shipping on their purchases. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a gazillionaire who is soon to own everything in the world, will add to his bank account and post office employees will suffer lower back spasms from hefting all of those packages.

 Between Black Friday and CyberMonday is Small Business Saturday. It’s an important day to patronize the independent businesses and retailers in town. They need to make a profit too. 

 I know the Weiser Chamber of Commerce has events planned for Saturday, Nov. 24, including an open house and some promotions around town. Stay tuned. We’ll let you know what is going on.

 Until then, it’s bazaar season, and you can start shopping for those unique gifts this weekend in Cambridge at the annual arts and craft show at the county fairgrounds.

 The big craft show at the Vendome in Weiser follows on Nov. 16-17. We’re talking 50 to 60 vendors.   

 Later in the month of November, the Festival of Trees is coming, along with the holiday parade. 

 We are working on our annual Christmas Memories special section right now with a publication date coming up shortly. It’s a fun project to work on this time of year.

 Some local high school students have penned their favorite or most memorable Christmas memories. They are short and fun to read and truly original. One has a special memory that involves cinnamon rolls. 

 A reader recently wrote me a letter complaining that we don’t do a good enough job of letting residents know of upcoming events in town. 

 We do a great coverage of events after the fact, he said, but he wanted to know what is going on before it happens. 

 My response is, sure, we can do better and we’ll try. For some noteworthy events, we write an advance story that gives all the details and more. 

 For other happenings, we put those in the “Coming Up” column that always runs on page 2. Please keep sending us your events, either via email or stop by the office.

 We are online now with our own website that has a listing of upcoming events. We will keep that up to date to let you know what is going on.

 Steve Lyon is the editor of the Weiser Signal American. Contact him at scoop@signalamerican.com