We must have been out sick the day it was decided that the state of our nation’s economy (and, by extension, our well-being as a people) could be summarized by how much money we spend during an archaic crypto-pagan gift-giving ceremony co-opted by the Catholic church, because we darn well would have voted against it.

We dearly enjoy giving gifts, make no mistake. The opportunity to get together with friends, family and neighbors and exchange tokens of love and appreciation is a wonderful excuse for a holiday. Finding a way to make someone smile, to spark a kid’s imagination or remind those in your life how important they are to you by giving them a gift is an idea as old and beautiful as humanity itself. (We suspect even animals have some sense of the importance of gift-giving—when your cat leaves a mouse on your pillow, though you may not like finding it, you know how very much that mouse meant to him.)

Unfortunately, we live in a vast and complicated world that moves at an incredible velocity. Only a century ago, an object’s origin was transparent, and items traded from abroad were rare and exotic, but now everything we touch has hidden origins and secret ties; everything is a riddle. This gift you bought, was it made by children? People suffering extraordinary economic injustice? In its production, exactly how many dreadful things were done to the environment, to the land it was made in, to the world?

Every dollar we put into the strange river which is the economy is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. Do you want a world of blood and exploitation (which is the one we live in now), or a world of art and effort and justice? The choice, as ever, is yours.

A great place to start is with our story about holiday craft fairs this week (or our story about artists’ open studios last week). After years of receiving manufactured gifts of uncertain origin, of condemning your loved ones to purgatory in the exchange lines after another sale item breaks, imagine their delight when you give them something handmade and beautiful. You might even be able to tell them the name of the maker, the actual name of the human who crafted it, and that’s the beauty of buying local—the dollars you spend give in both directions, securing you remarkable gifts while investing money into the local community. If the last few years have reminded us of anything, it’s that big corporations are not looking out for us, the corporate banking industry is not looking out for us, the insurance companies are not looking our for us, the stock market trading firms are not looking out for us—but our friends and neighbors, just possibly, might be.

To that end, The Wire is extraordinarily proud to have worked with Seacoast Local to produce the 2011 Seacoast Local’s Guide, a beautiful new publication dedicated to the our community. It is both a directory of all the members of Seacoast Local, a wonderful group of community-minded, independent businesses, and a shopping guide of sorts. Whether you’re looking for gifts or necessary services, it’s a great place to start. Look for the Local’s Guide at any member business, and lots of other places, as well (possibly right next to where you picked up The Wire), and get out there and meet your neighbors.

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