When I was a lad, the Christmas shopping season didn't get started until the beginning of December, or at least not sooner than the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.  Things have changed to the point that these days the extended holiday season gets started even before Halloween.  Now that the period of highest economic activity in the annual business cycle is seriously cranking up, it's a good time to be thinking about the effect the choices we make as individuals have on our communities.

On Saturday, November 21st, the American Independent Business Alliance(AMIBA) marks America Unchained!, a national campaign to encourage American communities to "unchain" by doing all shopping, dining out, and other business only with locally-owned independents, adding millions of dollars to their local economies.

America Unchained! highlights the findings of studies in Maine and Austin demonstrating that locally-owned independent businesses generate three and a half times as much local economic activity as chains. A study from Andersonville, Illinois finds independent businesses generate about 70% more local economic activity per square foot, while studies in San Francisco and Grand Rapids, Michigan demonstrate that even a 10% shift in personal spending can make a significant difference in local employment.  Conversely, a recent study from New Orleans shows a contraction of the local economy with a 10% shift of spending away from local independents.

America Unchained! is observed nationwide by over a hundred business alliances and main street coalitions, by national trade associations representing booksellers, music stores, toy retailers and restaurants, as well as by numerous individual businesses.  In some locations, participating small businesses offer special discounts to highlight the movement.

Carla Jimenez (full disclosure:  she's my sister, and you're damn right I'm proud of her), owner of a bookstore in Tampa FL and a board member of AMIBA, describes the potential impact of targeted shopping with businesses in the two Tampa Bay counties.  "On an average November day last year, over $44 million dollars entered the Hillsborough County economy, and over $28 million in Pinellas. If all those transactions had been exclusively with locally-owned independent businesses for just one day, we would have kept over $23 million dollars more in the local economy than if spent at national chains," says Ms Jimenez. "America Unchained! helps everyone quantify the impact of personal spending choices. If you're spending less these days -- and who isn't? -- we offer a way to make it count more."

Wherever you live, you can help your neighbors keep their jobs and businesses in these tough economic times by recycling the bucks you spend within the community, instead of sending them to a distant corporate headquarters, maybe even an offshore tax haven.  If you live in an area subject to sales tax, those recycling dollars also contribute more to your community's public coffers.  And local businesses contribute on average about four times more than chains to charitable causes in their communities, something only the unredeemed Scrooges among us could object to in this traditional season of giving.

So, friends, mark your calendars for Saturday, November 21st, and put to work in your community the dollars you spend on that day, keep the spirit of the day in mind through your holiday shopping season, and think about the impact of your economic choices the whole year round.  Check out the American Independent Business Alliance website for information on participating businesses and community groups in your area, put the word out, and spread as much cheer as you can among your friends and neighbors, whatever holiday you choose to observe or ignore.

And I know it's about six weeks too early for this, but Happy Yule!