This holiday season, shop local and smile

The storekeepers around here are ready for the Christmas season. They've bought all the good items from a busy world so we can in turn buy for our family, our friends and ourselves. Clothes to keep us warm, food for happy stomachs, toys and games to play with and laugh with, create with, and books to read to keep our heads happy and interested and engaged with the world.

They've brought in the holly and the joyful decorations. The clean smell of pines, the bright reds of poinsettias, the colorful lights that brighten these long nights. Their stores smell good and the people inside are smiling and helpful - our friends and neighbors - asking about our families and our health, passing along tidbits of local news, helping us pick out the right gifts, sharing the spirit of the holidays when it's cold outside and warm words feel especially good.

Shopping locally makes such good and fun sense, especially when you know that dollars spent here stay here and circulate in the community and strengthen the local economy. Ads throughout the Cape Gazette and in the holiday gift guide being distributed with this week's newspapers provide a sense of the breadth of what our local retailers offer. One word describes it all: impressive. And it reminds us of how fortunate we are to live where the shopping opportunities are endless.

Add to the shopping the Christmas parades, the tours, the concerts and that amazing Santa Claus who pops up anywhere and everywhere, and it's easy to understand why so many people get into the spirit of the season.

Most of all, the Christmas season reminds us of how good it feels to do things for other people, whether buying a simple gift for a stranger, throwing some cash and change into the Salvation Army buckets, visiting a shut-in with a smile and a song, or showing such sincere appreciation for the gift of a fruitcake that you actually begin to like it.

So there you have it. Shop local and help make everyone happy. Let the holiday season begin!