Are You Buying American Made Gifts This Christmas?
This Christmas I’m going to do my best to buy American made products.
Why? Because economists say that if each American spends $64 on U.S. items this h0liday season, they’d create 200,000 jobs.
Can you believe that? Just $64 dollars from each of us and we would create 200,000 jobs. What a difference that could make in our communities!
If you haven’t been following ABC’s Made in America programming I encourage you to read about it here. ABC found that often we think we are buying products that are made in our country but in reality many of them come from overseas.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/made-in-america/
On ABC’s blog they have an United States map and you can check out what American made products are listed in your state. I’m from Kentucky and here are some of the beautiful handmade gift ideas I found at https://bereacollegecrafts.com/ There are tons of different gifts handcrafted by local artisans. Berea College is fairly close to where I live but you don’t have to go there to purchase these products. You can order them online. Take a look at this beautiful pottery, handmade clipboards and a cool wooden puzzle.
Believe it or not all these gifts are under $30!
And another great place to purchase hand-crafted gifts is etsy.com. You can search for an item, and then narrow down the results by entering your location (or state), so you can support local artists and crafters. Here are a few links to some fun finds from my friend Char’s Delight Crochet shop on etsy:
A great place to start on etsy right now is their main “Gift Ideas” page. Lots of great categories with gifts for all ages!
Let’s make this the year we buy American products! Are you with me?
Twenty years ago I bought various Santa ornaments, pins & even a painted bowling pin in Berea but don’t remember which store. Would love catalogs or info.
I will be making most of my Christmas gits this year. I’m a gardener, so I will be taking my canned tomatoes & making homemade salsa. I made jars of jam earlier, so I’ll be adding cookies to the jam and salsa, placing them in a baskets and that will be my gift for the adults. I will try to buy from small businesses and as well as American for as many of my nieces/nephews as possible.