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By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch
Post
HUTCHINSON,
Kan.
—&nbsp;The traditional Christmas shopping season is upon us with Small Business Saturday this weekend."It's been a little harder Christmas this year," said Mark Buckley with the Toy Depot. "A lot of people are staying home. Many of the stores, like we do, you can order online, you can call us, we'll deliver to your car, we'll take you, you know, to your house. You'll find out that small business will do a lot of that."If you need to shop in person, Buckley says you can count on small buinesses to do what it takes to be safe."Stores will go out and they do extra cleaning," Buckley said. "They have a machine that kills all the bacteria in the store every night. It kills all the germs. We go through and we wipe down the doorknobs three or four times a day. We wipe down the horse. We have five hand sanitizer stations. It's really a safer place to shop than a lot of the big box stores because Mom and Pop do a lot more to take care of their neighbors, I think."Even though Sleep Shoppe and Furniture Gallery has a bigger storefront than your usual Mom and Pop, they're still thinking safety in their showroom."All of our staff will be in a mask," said Kevin Rule. "We do wipedowns of all of the hard surfaces a couple, three times a day. We're out there promoting safety. Safety and savings is what we do downtown."Both Rule and Buckley encourage shoppers to spend some time in downtown Hutchinson and see if you can find what you need locally, even if shopping online, before going to a national retailer.

Downtown merchants encourage shopping local on Small Business Saturday