Holly Daze has been a staple of the holiday season for many years. The annual weekend of sales and festivities is organized by the Emo Chamber of Commerce.
David Goodman Sr. is the former owner of North Country Track and Wheel, he was a business owner in the earlier days of the tradition.
“I’m not a business owner any more, my son has taken over the business, but I was around when it started,” he said. “I do recall the discussion at the time was that we wanted to have a sales event that would be more focused on activities and events, things that would give back to the community, for appreciation for their supporting us for the year. It was more geared to that than it was towards a big selling event.”
Over the years events like the parade and fireworks have been added which are more directed towards the customer appreciation angle.
“That’s where things like the parade and the fireworks eventually came along,” Goodman said. “They’ve added things for small businesses like the vendor markets. We tried to add things to it to make it a fun family thing and that was basically the focus of it at the time was ‘let’s do something that we can try to show the community that we appreciate them for supporting us all year.’”
“An effort has always been made over the years to try and make sure we didn’t overlap the Fort Frances parade or other events in the district,” Goodman added.
Goodman recalled some of the other business owners who were around at the time.
“All those different things were just things we brainstormed and came up with,” he said. We’re talking about the days of Gordon Meyers, Meyers clothing and Ted Corrigan’s Fairway Store, the Cloverleaf was downtown at the time with the Loney brothers, not a lot of those people are around any more, but that shows how far back it goes I guess.”
Despite the passage of time, the businesses of Emo invite you to come out and enjoy the start of the festive season in Emo.
