Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Fill your family's stockings with thoughtful little gifts without spending your whole holiday budget.
My parents are stocking-stuffer experts. Every item in our stockings is perfectly personalized and tailored for its recipient. Some are sweet, some are thoughtful, some are silly, some are useful. They work together to pick up things here and there throughout the year. We always save our stockings to open last, and it’s one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I love to be handed a big, fat stocking, brimming with possibilities! (Our stockings usually come with an annex, a pile on the mantel or an extra bag full of all the goodies that didn’t fit in the stockings. My parents don’t stop filling the stocking just because the stocking is full.) Reaching in and pulling out small things, one by one, and appreciating the level of thought my …
Monday, December 17, 2012
How ready are you for Christmas?
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Monday, December 17, 2012
Christmas Eve is a week away. How ready are you? Are you an organized Christmas shopper who already has everything purchased, wrapped and ready to go, or are you procrastinating buying gifts until later this week. Tell us how prepared you are by voting in our poll, then in the comments, tell us why you got shopping out of the way or why you're still procrastinating.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Here are ten ways to have fun and spread holiday cheer without breaking the bank.
This year’s holiday season can be special for you and your family regardless of your budget. Here are some fun tips for creating new holiday traditions while saving money. 1) Make your cards from recycled materials. Cards can be made from paper grocery bags, cereal boxes, used file folders and even last year’s holiday cards. Feature your family’s artwork and use recycled wrapping paper or paper from catalogs and magazines for backgrounds. A great resource for making cards from recycled materials is "Creative Correspondence" by Michael and Judy Jacobs, available at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon.com. 2) Have fun together and create a festive decoration by making a gingerbread house. You can bake the gingerbread yourself and use …
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Several Philadelphia-based nonprofits are trying to encourage people to pause in their shopping and find a way to help others.
Will donating to charity ever be as popular as shopping during the holiday season? A partnership of nonprofits hopes so. For many people, the holiday shopping marathon began on Thanksgiving day, with some national chains opening their doors just hours after the traditional turkey dinner. Then comes Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, which has morphed into Cyber Week. Now, there's a new campaign asking you to open your wallet – Giving Tuesday. The Giving Tuesday website says the effort, coming on the heels of days devoted to consumerism, is designed "to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations." …
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Are you gearing up to let your fingers do the walking on Cyber Monday?
Southampton residents who didn’t want to brave the crowds on Black Friday or Small Business Saturday still have one more big chance to save courtesy of Cyber Monday. Similar to the two other major shopping events, Cyber Monday differs in that consumers don’t have to leave the comfort of their own homes (or offices) to take advantage of some pretty big pre-holiday deals. All the bargains laid out for Cyber Monday are for online shoppers only. So how can you find the best deals online this Cyber Monday? While most major retailers that have an online presence aren’t tipping their hats on their online deals just yet, many have splash pages set up that they're inviting shoppers to bookmark in advance of the Nov. 26 shopping holiday. Here are …
Lucy remembers Christmas traditions with her family as she also says goodbye to Patch.
I hand it to all of you who venture out into the world on Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, I can barely rouse myself out of bed due to the turkey, stuffing and pie-induced coma I’m in. So to anyone who managed to get up early (or who camped out before the stores opened) to battle the throngs of bargain seekers, I salute you. For me, one of the best things about the holiday is that it marks the beginning of the Christmas season. Obviously, Black Friday shoppers feel the same way. The tree goes up that weekend, and I’ll watch every sappy Christmas movie ever made – twice – while I decorate and bake. The kids usually take bets on how long it’ll be before I start to cry, and then spy on me until a winner is proclaimed. But the most …
Saturday, November 24, 2012
AmEx's third annual Small Business Saturday is today, Nov. 24, 2012.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Tips for getting the presents they want without having to hoof it from Southampton to the North Pole.
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Friday, November 23, 2012
Santa’s awesome, but he doesn’t always deliver the hottest toys of the season on demand to Southampton, no matter how nicely we ask. If the kids – or wannabe kids – in your life happen to have their hearts set on presents that are hard to come by, it can be torturous running from store to store only to find what they really want just isn’t available. Whether your little girl has her sights on the latest Lalaloopsy, your son wants a Hot Wheels R/C Terrain Twister or that “big baby” in your life is yearning for a copy of Halo 4, here are some ideas on how to track down what’s in demand without putting miles and miles on your vehicle in the process: Tips for Shopping in Town If you hate ordering online and love the gratification of being able…
Find out what’s in before you head out to shop.
Making sure to put just the right presents under the tree for kids can be tricky even for Santa. If you’re hoping to find out what’s hot before you head out to shop on Black Friday or Small Business Saturday, we’ve put together a few suggestions. Retailers themselves are generally the best judges of what’s in. Here are what some of the biggest toy retailers in the area are saying: Toys ‘R’ Us This retailer has a Top 15 list of toys for boys and girls. Some of its suggestions include: To see the full list, visit Toys ‘R’ Us online. Target This store agrees with Toys ‘R’ Us on a few counts, but has its own suggestions, as well. They include: To see the full list of suggestions, visit Target online. Walmart This retailer has an extensive list…
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Before you start looking for those great holiday-shopping deals, check out the schedule below to help plan your day.
Black Friday shopping is a serious project. Stores will be filled with people looking for cheap flat screen TVs or the hottest toys for the kids. Over the past few years, some stores have readjusted the Black Friday sales from opening at 3 or 5 a.m. to midnight or, in some cases, Thanksgiving evening. Some shoppers have expressed annoyance with the practice of holiday sales on Thanksgiving, saying it encourages families to cut short their holiday together for consumerism. On the other hand, the spacing out of the sales can help prevent the potentially dangerous scene of a stampede of shoppers bursting through the doors at 5 a.m. By now, most of the savvy shoppers out there have already mapped out their plan for Friday. For the …
Susan Corson-Finnerty
10:41 am on Friday, December 14, 2012
We do many of the things mentioned above. In addition, we go every year to the Center City Macy's (old Wanamaker's store) for the light show, which occurs every hour; we check out the minature train set-up at the Reading Terminal Market; we walk through the Dickens' Christmas Carol display at Macy's (upstairs) and read aloud (dramatically) the passages from the book next to each animated tableau… more ›