Black Friday — the busy shopping day after Thanksgiving that has drawn hordes of bargain seekers to shopping malls and big-box stores in recent years — became Plaid Friday for many in the Monadnock region last week, as shoppers flocked to “buy local” in Peterborough, Jaffrey and surrounding towns.

“We had a great day,” said John Sepe of Mindful Books and Ephemera, a shop on Main Street in Jaffrey. “A lot of business owners wore plaid. A lot of people who came in wore plaid. It was a lot of fun.”

Sepe, who is on the advisory board for Monadnock Buy Local, an organization that encourages people to shift their shopping habits, said Plaid Friday is a national movement that started in Oakland, Calif., in 2009.

“People have shifted to buying online and going to malls,” Sepe said Monday. “The intent is to ask people to spend 10 percent of their holiday money in the local community. That would make a big difference in the local economy.”

Sepe said this year was the “first big effort” for Plaid Friday in the region.

“Last year, it just kind of happened at the last minute,” he said. “There were only nine businesses involved.” Sepe said he wasn’t sure how many storeowners participated this year, but that the point of the program was to build awareness of local businesses.

“We don’t have the firepower to give something away at four in the morning at some crazy price, just to get people in the store,” he said. “That’s a marketing tactic that’s worked well for the malls, but it’s not for us.”

At New England Everyday Goods in Peterborough’s Depot Square, co-owner Susan Therriault, said Plaid Friday was a hit.

“This is the first time it’s been slow today. We’ve been slammed. We needed today,” she said. “I feel very blessed today being busy. ... It’s a great little downtown. Glad to be a part of it.”

Therriault said the store was drawing both local and out-of-town shoppers.

“We’ve probably had 800 people go through here today,” she said. “It’s been packed.”

On Monday, Jim Therriault of New England Everyday Goods said, “We had a surprisingly good Friday. It was our best day yet being in business. And Saturday was a respectable second. People who were out were enthusiastically shopping Friday.”

He said that was a pleasant change from the previous year, which was the store’s first day after Thanksgiving in business.

“We usually just have to sit on the sidelines, and let the big stores have their day,” Therriault said about the day after Thanksgiving. “But this was far beyond my expectations. It’s a good indicator of what may be coming.”

Plaid Friday was promoted around the nation as an alternative for those looking to make holiday purchases on the day after Thanksgiving, and it was received with enthusiasm by many local shoppers.

Jim Giddings of Greenville, while shopping at the Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, said he was wearing plaid in support of Plaid Friday and local businesses.

“I’m not a big spender because I don’t have a lot of money,” Giddings said. “It’s sort of a compromise with [National] Buy Nothing Day. ... But I’m afraid I can’t quite live with that because I have a birthday coming up I have to buy for.”

Buy Nothing Day is day of protest against consumerism, a day when people are urged not to make any purchases at all. It has been observed by some in the United States on the day after Thanksgiving since 1997.

A fire alarm was accidentally set off in the bookshop while Giddings was shopping Friday afternoon, but it didn’t seem to deter him or the numerous other shoppers in the store.
“Trying to sing along with the fire alarm,” he said.

Selinda Chiquoine of the Toadstool said the fire alarm, which took a while to be turned off, put a bit of a damper on the day, but many store employees and customers were wearing plaid.

Shirley Franchi of Peterborough, shopping at Joseph’s Coat on Grove Street in Peterborough, said she came out to shop Friday to support all the downtown stores.

“Because I was staying away from the others,” she said, referring to big-box stores.

She said she usually doesn’t shop on Black Friday.

“But this is a favorite store of mine. I wouldn’t go to a mall,” she said.

In the past week, the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce on Route 101 was flying a colorful checked flag to remind shoppers to patronize local small businesses.

“I haven’t had a chance to check in with too many people yet,” said Pam Lorimer of the Chamber of Commerce on Monday. “But I’ve heard that all in all it was a very encouraging day.”

Artists who sell a sizable amount of their works during the holiday season were also encouraged by the turnout at their events on Friday and throughout the weekend. In Peterborough, two events, an exhibit by the Three Squared artists group at the Peterborough Historical Society and the second annual Crafts at the Town House show at the nearby Peterborough Town House, drew excellent crowds, according to organizers.

“We’ve been at the Historical Society on the weekend for about five years. We had a really good turnout Friday evening at the opening and on Saturday,” said Kitty Cloud of Peterborough, one of the Three Squared artists exhibitors. “I’d say it was as good or slightly better than previous years. It was certainly positive and everybody was cheerful.”

“It’s our second year,” said Gigi Laberge of Henniker, who organized the Crafts at the Town House event. “We’re a group of artists from around the area, a lot of us juried members of the League of N.H. Craftsmen. We got together and rented the Town House. It went really well. We had a great turnout.”

Laberge said that while the Crafts at the Town House group wasn’t officially part of the Plaid Friday effort or any other buy-local movement, the artists were all strongly committed to promoting locally made products. She said having other activities going on in town during the Thanksgiving Day shopping weekend really helped everyone.

“There was the other show as well at the Historical Society, so people had had a great opportunity to do their shopping locally,” she said. “It was definitely a bigger turnout than last year. We did two days, and we had a lot of repeat buyers.”

“When you have a lot of stuff going on, people can have a good time,” she said. “It’s as opposite from going to a shopping mall as it possibly can be.”

This article appears in the Nov. 29 issue of the Ledger-Transcript.