The holiday shopping season tends to be a stressful time for shoppers as well as retailers with large crowds, long lines, mounting tension and explosive tempers as everyone is in a rush to get everything on their list. 

A new retail complex featuring a mix of local and national chains is expected to break ground in Cherokee this year, with Tribal Council voting this month to approve an additional $2 million for the project in return for a 5 percent equity stake.

Downtown Sylva looks quite a bit different these days than this time last year.

Planning board officials recommended and the Canton Board of Aldermen/women approved plans that will bring an additional 7,000 square feet of retail space to the town’s rapidly growing Champion Drive corridor just south of Interstate 40.

On a rainy June Monday in Maggie Valley, wispy mists lick lush mountaintops that tower behind nearly every business in town, including the Cabbage Rose gift shop on Soco Road. 

With nearly two years of prep work already under their belts, developers have cleared the first major hurdle for bringing a $20 million, 56,000-square-foot retail project that will include a Publix to Waynesville.

Something about the holidays always brings out the best — and worst — in people and Santa Claus is the unquestioned arbiter thereof.

A Sylva gun storeowner was given special permission to fire weapons in the town limits by town leaders this month.

Try scaring up a parking space, hunting down an empty bench or pushing a double-stroller along the crowded sidewalks on peak days, and the popularity of downtown Waynesville’s quaint, tree-lined shopping district is obvious.

But for merchants, getting those browsers off the sidewalks and into their shops is another job altogether.

Before the gravy had turned cold and the Thanksgiving Day turkey had been packed away in Tupperware, shoppers were already lining up at the Walmart in Waynesville for one of the earliest Black Friday door busters ever — Thursday night.