Gift Guide

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With Christmas right around the corner, and Hanaukah already begun, presents are on everyone's mind. Here are a few ideas of what to get for some of the people in your life.

Parents:
They might appreciate some of your school paraphenelia, such as a bumber sticker, license plate frame, or a sweatshirt. Buy at your bookstore if you can get a student deal (there might be extra discounts near the end of the semester) or, if your school is better known, shop around for the best deal.

Friends:
If they are also in school, then gift cards are an excellent choice. Get one for the restaurant students like to hang out at, or for iTunes or Amazon.com. Some places, including Kroger and Giant Eagle will offer money off of your next gas purchase if you spend enough on gift cards, so check out those places first.

Groups:
Are you president of a club and need to get gifts for all of the members? This is what I did one year: I went to a dollar store and bought the needed number of decorative jars, and then bought a bunch of bags of candy to fill it up. I think I spent about ten dollars on six gifts.

Sister:
Whether older or younger, you can't really go wrong with makeup or jewlery. Make it age appropriate and something you know she will like. You can get a wide range of products at a nearby drugstore.

Brother:
Chances are, your brother loves movies. Find him a DVD of some lesser known movie that is in his favorite genre. These will be well-priced and often available in the discount store of anywhere from Blockbuster to your local grocery store.

Related articles

• The 20 Gift Cards Consumers Want Most [STUDY] (mashable.com)
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Small Business Saturday

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is enjoying their breaks and all of the food. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays and I don't think it gets enough credit, what with it coming right before Christmas.

As everyone knows, tomorrow is the biggest shopping day of the year. A lot of people will be trekking out early to start knocking items off of their Gift lists. The next day, November 27, will be the first of what will hopefully be a long standing shopping tradition. It is called Small Business Saturday, and is sponsored by American Express, a company known for their support of one group of their clients, small business owners.

Small businesses, or businesses with less than 100 employees, are a vital part of local economy. They create jobs and leadership positions, stimulate the economy, on a large as well as small scale, and bring money to their communities in the form of taxes. They also create a local culture unique to their area. See the Small Business Administration website for more information.

I have a few personal reasons for wanting support small business in addition to the ones I listed. I plan on becoming an entrepreneur after graduation. I believe that this is the best way for me to make a difference in the world. Also, my favorite part about my hometown is the downtown area, with unique coffee shops and stores that sell merchandise unavailable at WalMart. I also believe that small businesses are more ethical than larger ones, often without trying. They are more likely to employ full-time employees, and they create less waste.

Entrepreneurs are brave and creative people. They took a chance, often times giving up a steady income in order to see their dreams come true. For this, I believe they should be rewarded. We often do not think to visit small businesses because we don't know about them. We like what we're used to. Small businesses do not have marketing budgets that can accommodate major campaigns like corporations do or enough money to rent prime locations. But if we let small businesses die, we will lose an important part of our economy. One that encourages people to take chances and give us more choices.

Small Business Saturday's goal is not only to get consumers to shop small this Saturday, but to frequent these places more often throughout the year. On Black Friday, consider visiting your local gift shop for some Christmas shopping, instead of the mall. You'll miss a lot of the crowds and might even discover your new favorite clothes store.  While you're at it, you will be keeping the money you spend within your town, rather than to National Headquarters on the other side of the country.

Related articles

• Support Your Local Economy With Small Business Saturday! (inhabitat.com)
• Support Local Businesses And You Could Earn $25! (businessinsider.com)
• First-ever "Small Business Saturday" Gains Momentum Online (readwriteweb.com)
• Feds warn retailers to have a safe Black Friday (msnbc.msn.com)
• Best Thanksgiving Episodes On TV (crushable.com)

Halloween Costumes

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If you are like me, then you probably plan your costume way in advance. Of course, that doesn't help me much because I end up still not knowing what to go as, or not being able to put my costume together in time. What are you going as this year? How do you get your costume? Do you make or buy? Finally, what do you like to do for Halloween and how long does Halloween (every day you go to a Halloween party) last? I apologize for going a little crazy with the links.

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• Super-Crafty Halloween Costume Contest: The first entries are here! (sfgate.com)
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• Finance Alive " Finding Unique Halloween Costumes (karlskronalive.com)
• Top Most Creative and Unique Halloween Costume Ideas 2010 : World ... (worldcorrespondents.com)
• Green Halloween: what can I reuse or recycle to make a Halloween mask? (recyclethis.co.uk)
• Last-Minute Halloween Costumes 2010: Download Your Free Mask Now! (huffingtonpost.com)

My First Blog Fest (A little Late)

Over at Cerebral Lunchbox the author is hosting a blog fest specifically for blogs with 150 followers or less. This is perfect because I once wrote a post about how I love smaller, undiscovered blogs and wanted a way to find more of them (http://newintheblogosphere.blogspot.com/2010/07/blogs-of-note.html). Anyways, the topic is about my favorite Holdiday Special.

I am a sucker for Halloween TV specials, and the TV show with the best Halloween specials would have to be Home Improvement. My favorite would probably be the one where Wilson fakes his death and pretends to frame Tim. At the very end, Tim pulls another prank on Wilson at which point Tim appears with Wilson's parrot who says "Tim's the King!" Of course, it also helps that at the beginning, they were at a costume party and Jill comes dressed as the Wicked Witch and Tim is a flying monkey.

By the way, I'm sorry I got this post out a little late for the blog fest, I'm celebrating a lesser represented Holiday (at least by TV specials) known as Homecoming.