It's starting to look a lot like Christmas in downtown Moose Jaw.

Coinciding with small business week, the Downtown Moose Jaw Association is hosting Christmas in October this weekend (Oct 20-23) as a way to kickstart the holiday shopping season.

Businesses will be offering specials and decorating their storefronts.

Michaela Turner, secretary for the Downtown Moose Jaw Association, says many of the businesses in and around downtown will have extended hours for the event.

"Every store is a little bit different but most of them are open for late night shopping on Thursday night, Friday night, all day Saturday and then most of them are Sunday afternoon as well. It's definitely a great excuse to get out...All the stores do a lot of lights as well in the window displays, so it's a really nice time and the weather's still perfect, so it's a really great excuse to get out and walk around our downtown and really enjoy it and then support our local businesses as well."

She commented on the importance of shopping local this holiday season.

"Well I think our local businesses work hard and we want to appreciate them and we don't want any more businesses to not have a great season and I think every season is important, especially going into the Christmas holiday season when the majority of the sales happen for a lot of these small shops. Whether it's a local café or restaurant or boutique, giftware, flowers, whatever it might be, it's important to shop local and it really does matter where you spend your money. We really urge everybody to check out downtown this coming weekend and really enjoy it and appreciate all that Moose Jaw has to offer."

Turner says Christmas in October attracts people from all over the province, adding they've even seen bus tours come in from Alberta. She notes the 600-plus people coming into the city for the Snowbirds reunion will also be a big boost.

Jacki L'Heureux-Mason, executive director with Tourism Moose Jaw, expects a lot of people to get a head start on their Christmas shopping.

"Moose Jaw is really an awesome stop for your Christmas shopping," she said. "One of things I always joke about is that downtown Moose Jaw has everything you could ever want. It's 100 per cent true. Awesome for gifts. A lot of people like to do their gift shopping here. We get a steady lineup of people from Regina and Saskatoon that come in for Christmas in October. I know the lineup this year is large. We've got, I think, more people participating than I've ever seen before. I anticipate it's going to be a very, very busy week in Moose Jaw."

She explained how the event got started.

"This is something Yvette Moore started I think almost 30 years ago in her home and when she moved to her location downtown, she brought it with her. It's been growing every year. For sure in the last 10 years, I've seen more and more businesses participate. Basically, they get ready for Christmas. They're going to have their Christmas trees up, have some Christmas lights, some of the businesses even will have things like hot chocolate or apple cider when you come in and shop. Some have sugar cookies...It's just basically like Christmas-town Saskatchewan is going to be right here in Moose Jaw for a few days."

The city has installed holiday lights along Main Street, which will be turned on for the Christmas in Moose Jaw weekend, then turned off until after Remembrance Day.