Shop Small for the Holidays (& 2020 Can Go To Hell)
In sitting down to write any single thing about the holidays, I am reminded of my grandmother. Every year she’d write a holiday letter to friends and family, but never the usual boring “Bobby won his third soccer championship” or “Steve got a promotion” or our year has been “filled with ups and downs but ultimately we lived, laughed, and loved and that’s what mattered” type of stuff. She wrote in the voice of Glynda the Good Witch, and cast my grandfather as The Walrus, a perfect curmudgeon to provide a bit of tension in a story where Glynda wanted to decorate and celebrate, but The Walrus just grumbled and complained. Everything in the letter referenced real events, but was fantastical and filled with magic, told from the perspective of a glittering fairytale heroine.
I am not going to write such a thing about the year 2020. I can’t imagine anyone would. This year has been shocking upset after shocking upset, and if ever there was a year that many of us questioned the very nature of reality – of what was up and what was down, what was right and wrong, good and bad – I think this one was it. Many of us were stretched thin and close to breaking. But hopefully we are emerging still with some sense of clarity as to who we are and what we are about, distilling even some small propulsion toward goodness, and the motivation to use our dollars, few as they may be, to support small businesses, independent artists, and good causes that need them now more than ever.
I don’t think anyone would begrudge the full cancelation of holiday gifting this year, but if you are compelled to shop for a beer lover in your life, below are a few of my handpicked ideas to #supportsmall.
Other great ways to gift this year are:
Instead of an Amazon gift card, give a gift certificate to a favorite local shop
Instead of a Seamless or Grubhub gift card, give a gift certificate purchased directly from local bars, restaurants, or cafes that you’d be sad to see close
Donate to a cause you care about, like organizations for racial justice, those helping service industry workers and businesses, or ones feeding America’s homeless and hungry
$26
Handcrafted Ceramic Bottle Coaster
Lily Waite Ceramics
$10
Beers & Cameras Enamel Pins
$25
Drink Better Beer by Josh Bernstein
Be sure to order from a locally or independently owned bookstore!
$50
Sturgis Pretzel Gifts
$7
All Who Wander Are Looking for Beer Patch on Etsy
$20
The Things We All Do Tote
Threes Brewing
$28-175
Gift bundles from Greats of Craft
$40
Black on Black Crew Neck Sweatshirt
Non-Sequitur Beer Project
$65+
2020 Hoilday Beer Boxes
The NYC Brewers Guild
$45
Boh Small Batch Handcrafted Wooden Cutting Board
$20
Wild Does Not Mean Sour Tee
Off Color Brewing