Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Welcome to the most wonderful time of the year. Or, you might argue, the most stressful, especially if you’re a giver of gifts and your list is long and includes everyone from a great-grandma who needs or wants nothing to a fussy college student who wants (maybe even needs) everything. Plus, maybe you have a pet puppy or a turtle or two to please. (Fortunately, our pets probably don’t even realize they want or need anything, so we really can’t go wrong there.)
Now we know some people try to avoid the madness of this admittedly headache-inducing season by staying inside the house, cozy and warm, and buying everything online, but we have to ask: Now what fun is that? If you’re old enough to remember those halcyon days when a trip downtown, perhaps on the bus, to shop, say, Woolworth’s or The Boston Store, was a big deal – an event even – you’re old enough, and probably wise enough, to know there’s just something special about getting outside, into the madding crowd and up close and personal with the treasures on display all over the place this happy, if crazy-busy, season. Plus, you’ll surely get to meet a friendly local merchant, or three or 30, in the process.
And let’s face it: If we want to aid in the economic recovery, we can’t overlook the local economy. That means we really should do our best to shop local, to keep local doors open and registers humming.
That’s what Times Leader staffers did, almost every time, when putting together this gift guide. And we had fun doing it. (Shopping really is a job, see?)
Some of us can hardly wait to get back out there and buy some of this stuff for ourselves or our loved ones.
That said, we hope you like what we’ve chosen or at least that we can be of some help to you. We only wish we could have included, in these pages, everything cool or beautiful or useful we came across. Limited to 10 picks apiece, we just couldn’t. So what we’ve done is offered a start, several pages of ideas, imagination-sparkers if you will. Now the rest is up to you.
Get out there, and happy hunting!