Supporting Local Businesses

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Black Friday has come and gone, although Black Friday, like the time taken off by some for the Christmas holiday, seems to be creeping well beyond its one day boundary and taken up the mantle of Black Friday week. I have never been much for bracing the cold to stand in line for a bargain on Black Friday or any other day, but on Black Friday especially. It’s a day that seems to bring out the worst in people, and I for one do not want to start my holiday season in a frame of mind that neither brings good feelings towards my fellow man or good cheer. What I can get into though, as I did this year and the year before is “Small Business Saturday”, which is in its fifth year now; a fairly new holiday shopping concept where you choose to support the local economy by shopping at small local businesses. In fact, many states’ are now promoting the “Small Business Saturday” concept to extend beyond that post Thanksgiving shopping day to become an embraced shopping ideology that is applied throughout the rest of the year, stressing that “every dollar spent at a local business is recirculated three times more in the community than a dollar spent at a chain store”.