Shop local and online in 2020

Normally on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, shopkeepers throughout Block Island’s downtown can be found busily decorating their storefronts and setting up their shops for the annual Holiday Shopping Stroll, originally scheduled for Nov. 27 through Nov. 29. But as we all know, 2020 has been anything but normal.
The Stroll, as it has come to be known, has been cancelled this year, in an attempt to keep the usual crowds away to deter the spread of coronavirus. There will be no B.I. Chamber of Commerce raffles, no Winter Market at the library, no high school fundraisers, and no mulled cider and cookies to munch while you browse.
While the beloved Lobster Pot tree near the ferry landing is up, and there are wreaths on the utility poles and along the front of the porch at the Harborside Inn, the island seems oddly stuck between two holidays. There are plenty of pumpkins, hay bales, and scarecrows hanging out still, as if to say “Yay, we can actually, finally, stay around for Thanksgiving.” (To be fair, the judging for the Leo Lions Club’s first Block Island scarecrow contest held on November 21.)
Still, that doesn’t mean that stores won’t be

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