i would add if you choose to give gifts give those you have made yourself or something hand made by a crafts person. candles, pottery, cookies, something from your garden or a poem story or song from you will mean so much more than some glitzy object mass produced . Some shops do get
a good portion of their budget from christmas sales and they do depend on buyers, but you do not have to be a part of their bottm line unless you like the shops and feel good about them. If you have a choice between a small local shop and a huge multi national conglomerate,
which one will you give business to?