Bramblings: Shop local

Photo by Becky Nelson
Christmas season is always a whirlwind of activity at the farm. The “season” always starts before Thanksgiving as we begin making wreaths, preparing for tree sales and making sure our shelves are stocked with items suitable for gifts and holiday gatherings. Once the store opens on “Black Friday,” the hectic pace takes over and our lives for the next few weeks are non-stop action.

This is nothing unfamiliar to any other retailer reading this. Their Christmas sales season probably starts even before ours. Scheduling workers to keep your store or restaurant covered while allowing individuals some personal time to enjoy the hubbub while not working is a challenge. Making sure your shelves are stocked and ready without carrying too much inventory is another challenge. Advertising and pricing to attract customers yet still make a profit is yet another challenge.

During the COVID-19 crisis, finding enough man and woman power to cover all your employee bases is an additional challenge that is resulting in diminished hours and all sorts of gymnastics to keep the doors open. And then there are those heroes working in healthcare during this horrible virus surge. It’s not easy to find the joy and the reason for the season this year for many.

It promises to be a tough year for “brick and mortar” stores as more and more shoppers turn to the ease, safety and 24-hour availability of the internet for shopping. Black Friday has become gray Friday for many as the COVID-19 years tick on. It’s a hard season for retailers, facing many challenges, and for purchasers as well with inflation hitting the sales tickets.

There’s a lot to be said for pushing a button on a computer, sitting in your recliner and shopping the night away. My fear is that it is eroding the meaning of the Christmas season even more than it has suffered. No longer a true holy day for Christians, Christmas has become an essential secular celebration upon which countless retailers depend to take their books from red to black. The early traditions of giving a trinket or remembrance to celebrate the gifts given to the baby Jesus have exploded into overindulgence at the cash register and competitions amongst retailers to sell the latest, greatest, most amazing products ever.

But, heading out into the hubbub of the streets on a pre-Christmas night to enjoy the shoppers and the lights and the atmosphere is dwindling as thousands and thousands shop online. The impersonal nature of the internet is invading even our most sacred of seasons as it has every aspect of our lives over the past couple of years…online health checks, online learning, online business meetings, online public meetings. . . We are lucky here at the farm to see lots of people in person as they pick out their trees and wreaths. With a tree shortage this year and for more to come as growers age out of the industry, find it hard to get help to keep the trees pruned, readied and then cut and transported or are waiting for young trees to mature enough to cut, the future of everything, including live Christmas trees, is in question.

We are losing something. We are losing a lot of meaning and a lot of personal feeling by taking advantage of the impersonal internet to shop and to “live.” I am concerned about new “virtual” living being touted as the most amazing thing on the planet with the metaverse introduced, and I find myself trying to pull back from the virtual world in order to enjoy this amazing natural world we are letting slip through our fingers. We are missing out on the Christmas songs and carols echoing through the stores and the mall hallways. We are missing out on sitting on Santa’s lap and telling of our hopes and dreams. We are missing on the quiet walks or drives home with the Christmas lights twinkling. We are missing out on big, raucous family and friend gatherings and big, loud holiday concerts. We are missing out.

With shipping at its slowest in my memory and shortages of wanted goods heard in every avenue of purchasing, I urge you to all look locally for your gifts and trinkets for the holidays. Dedicate your spending budget in the neighborhood and support all the men and women dependent upon our local economy to survive. Clothing can be purchased in brick and mortar stores. Food items can be purchased at local grocery stores, farmstands and co-ops. Craft items will be purchased from local artisans. Candies can be purchased from local makers and local stores. If you can’t find it here, you don’t really need it.

We need to start thinking of each other this season. We need to think about preserving the meaning and joy of the season, some of which can be preserved by shopping at our local jewelry stores, clothing stores, gift shops, farm stores, groceries. What is important is the remembrance, the personal contacts, the spirit of Christmas. Please shut off your computer. Shop in your neighborhood and allow your neighbor to keep her store, or his livelihood, or his job as a cashier, her job stocking the shelves. Give a little gift or send a card or make a phone call to someone isolated or someone sacrificing their own personal life to work with those in the hospitals, intensive care units, emergency rooms, and doctor’s offices. Let’s rebuild our sense of community and local giving. It will be a while until we can gather as we hope, worship, sing, shout and party as we wish to, love each other without worrying about disease as we hope to. But until then, that elf on the shelf needs to be placed in our homes and our neighborhoods, not in the warehouse of an online store.

Shop local. Think local. Live local.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport. You may reach her at [email protected].