LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville is kicking off the holidays with a brand-new event.

For the first time, the city and Louisville Downtown Partnership are hosted a holiday market that will lead into Light up Louisville. 

One vendor is making the most of the new holiday market. Nelle Tajalle owns Hinana Shop and is selling items from all over the world.

“Lots of Asian pop culture and kawaii items or like anything that you can definitely find a big fan of is really cool,” said Tajalle.

She said she was originally from Guam and moved to Louisville in 2019. She said she knew she wanted to share parts of her home with the city.

“It’s all things that I used to grow up with. I’m not originally from here, so I thought there was a space for it in Louisville, and it makes a lot of people happy. It’s a lot of cute things,” she said.

This is the first time the Louisville Downtown Partnership hosted the holiday market before Light up Louisville. The plaza between Jefferson and Market streets offered holiday music, hot chocolate, and, of course, local vendors.

“I feel like you get to meet a lot of different people because they’re always looking for stuff to do. So of course you’re always going to have people who are interested in seeing what you have rather than having like a brick and mortar, just like casual shopping, like here it’s like holiday shopping, super fun; So, they’re looking for really cool and fun things,” she said. 

You can often find the 27 year old at flea markets across the city, but what makes today’s different is the uptick in sales from holiday shoppers.

“Yeah, especially because they find something very specific for someone they love and they’re like, ‘oh my gosh, my kid loves this show,’ that’s always the best part,” she said. 

Once it was dark, Santa and his helpers lit up Louisville with tens of thousands of lights, including the city’s Christmas tree.