EDITORIAL: Don't push 'buy now' button just yet

When you join thousands of holiday season revelers at the lighting ceremony today in downtown Coeur d’Alene, look around.

These people are on your team, and you’re on theirs.

It’s not just the glorious celebration that unites us. Those happy faces all around you confront many of the same challenges you do. We’re all in this together, and by supporting one another we can all get through.

“Wait a sec,” you interject. “Do I sense a crummy commercial coming on here?”

If it’s crummy, this commercial could taste like the sweet crust of leftover pumpkin pie and the crumbs of Grandma’s mouthwatering chocolate chip cookies.

Support throughout that sea of North Idahoans surrounding you should include the mutual financial support that keeps communities like ours the envy of so many others. As you gaze down Sherman Avenue, remember that just a few short decades ago, many of those shops were empty. Few of those restaurants existed.

The turning point was Duane B. Hagadone’s courageous investment in creating The Coeur d’Alene Resort which, right next to the company’s corporate headquarters, will also be the center of attention this evening. As a business generator, that investment was the bright light that led to the million and a half bright lights that will burst to life tonight.

And yet, nothing is guaranteed. Momentum never lasts forever. And as a community, as a region, one of the most certain ways to reverse our mutual good fortune is to send our money away.

You already know that online shopping, wrapped in its enticing packaging of ease and inventory, increases every year in multiples exceeding in-person shopping. But it is local shopping that bolsters the foundation of any community because the vast majority of those dollars stay right here.

Those dollars pay rents and mortgages. They bolster the many essential nonprofits in our area. They underwrite Little League teams, fill church coffers, support our schools, provide superior public safety. Amazon does none of that.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, merchants have five fewer days this year than last to meet their goals — goals that, in many cases, will determine the success or failure of their entire year. 

The better they do, generally speaking, the better we all do.

Before you head downtown this evening, maybe you can do some Christmas shopping locally. Your patronage will help make Black Friday brighter.