Businesses in Knoxville are hosting “Shop Local Thursdays” through the holiday season. Each Thursday, businesses downtown will have extended hours, with a different theme for each week. Leta Burke with Candi’s Flowers says that it’s an initiative to encourage shopping locally.

“We’ve been meeting with some of the local retailers and business people and coming up with some ways that we can respond to some community feedback that we’ve received. Some of the feedback that we’ve received is ‘You’re not open when I’m in town.’ And we do have a lot of commuters. So during the Christmas season, we’re going to give it a try, we’re going to stay open for extended hours on Thursday nights, and we’ll have something fun to do each week.”

View the themes for each week here. More information about Shop Local Thursdays can be heard on today’s Let’s Talk Knoxville.