Today is the first-ever Small Business Saturday. Shop locally as much as possible in support of your neighborhood's independent small businesses. Not everything you're shopping for is available nearby, but many items are. Many stores sell a greater variety of products than the store name implies. Go into your neighborhood's stores, spend some time browsing, and be pleasantly surprised by how much you'll find there.
For several decades, the big retail companies have been heavily advertising the day after Thanksgiving as "Black Friday" and promoting it as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. A few years ago, Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, invented Cyber Monday and promoted it as a day to shop online. This year, small business is standing up to be counted. Small Business Saturday has been added to the shopping calendar, and shopping locally is being encouraged.
Buy what you can locally, and shop elsewhere for what you can't buy nearby.
Please click here to link to the websites of local businesses and services.