The Christmas trees are going up in downtown Greenville as shop keepers spruce up their businesses for the holidays.

All through Greenville, businesses are vying for your holiday shopping dollars. You should give it to them.

It's human nature to want to believe that everything is

better in the next, bigger, town down the road.

Greenville isn't a shopping

mecca, and it's true that some products aren't available here. That's

no reason, however, to buy everything, or even most things, out of town.

Devote a day to shopping here - and don't forget Georgiana and McKenzie.

Make a real effort to fill your gift list locally. Shoppers will be

surprised at how few names will be left unchecked by the end of the day.

Shopping in Montgomery and Birmingham isn't cheaper.

Gas prices are too high to run all over another city to find gifts that you could have bought just as easily here. Also, you have to have meals while you shop. Meals

cost money. Savings on merchandise are largely mythical - wrapping paper

and tape cost the same at big name department stores everywhere, and we'd be willing to

bet that impulse buying on out-of-town trips raises the bottom line well above what shoppers would have spent here.

We've all seen communities in which the downtown

businesses catered almost exclusively to visitors, offering products that

residents did not need and could not afford.

But here in Butler County, our merchants almost cater solely to us, not someone passing through.

Money is often stretched to the limit and it is no different here in Greenville. At times like this, it's

even more important to keep what we've got circulating locally. We do

have wonderful products, including some that are not available anywhere

else, offered by the merchants who can only support our communities as

well as we support them.

Shop locally. It's the right thing to do, this year and

every year, and it just makes good, common sense.