While today may kick off the official national Christmas shopping season, for a small group of volunteers, Christmas started in Natchez months ago.

Nearly a decade ago, a few smart women decided that Natchez was missing out on a little Christmas spirit.

And they were correct. Aside from the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree in the middle of Main Street, the area didn’t particularly look all that festival or even cohesive at Christmas.

That’s when those smart ladies realized that somehow a huge gap had formed in Natchez’s tourism calendar and they quickly rushed to organize, flesh out some new events and begin to promote the city.

Their first mission was to generate funds to spruce up the city’s Christmas decorations.

Then they began organizing all of the group of diverse Christmas events into a bit of a tourist offering including making the annual lighting of the downtown Christmas tree into a part of a much larger event.

In no time, the industrious group managed to put Natchez on the region’s Christmas map.

This year, they Christmas in Natchez group made a good decision in moving the official lighting and the events surrounding from the Friday after Thanksgiving to the Saturday after.

The goal is to focus on getting more people — residents and visitors — into downtown Natchez on a day that the American Express Company has been promoting as Small Business Saturday.

The event is aimed at encouraging people to shop in small businesses such as those that line downtown streets.

As a way to say “thank you” for the incredible efforts the team creates and supports Christmas in Natchez, we encourage people to go downtown tomorrow, enjoy the show and spend some money downtown.