THE festive feel good factor is alive and well and living on a high street near you if the efforts of local independent retailers are anything to go by.

Determined to beat the economic doom and gloom, many of them are joining forces to provide a feast of tinseltime fun for shoppers.

In Bowness, event organisers Jackie Barton of Butterworths Deli and Joanne Smyth from the Hen House have enlisted support from more than 35 shops for their late night openings on Thursdays, December 3 and December 10, until 8pm.

"We are trying to encourage Bowness retailers to become more of a community and one of our ideas was to try late night shopping," explained Ms Barton. "A lot of locals don't shop in the village as it can be busy and parking is a problem. While we appreciate that, it would be nice to entice them into Bowness and remind them of the wonderful assortment of shops we have.

"We want to get as much enthusiasm going as possible."

Meanwhile, Dales shopping emporium Country Harvest on the A65 at Ingleton has organised a Christmas Extravaganza with food tastings, mulled wine and mince pies from 6pm to 9pm on Friday, December 4, and introduced extended opening until 6pm from December 16 to December 23 inclusive.

And at Artisan in Kendal, an army of local food producers have been lined up for a delicious free tastings programme including puddings from the famous Sharrow Bay country house hotel at Ullswater (December 18), More? puds and gateaux from champion baker Patrick Moore of Staveley (December 21), and cheese from the award-winning Appleby Creamery (December 22).