Buy Local Week starts today: Ten ways to buy local this holiday season

Marie EvB Gibbons

​The reasons why shopping local is a good idea have been floating around so much lately that anyone who cares about their community, or shopping, or both, knows the basic tenets by heart. Still, it never hurts to repeat them:

Shopping for local merchandise at small businesses close to home keeps your money on the block, sustains the community rather than corporations, helps provide jobs to your neighbors, and leaves a lighter carbon footprint.

Lucky for Denverites, our city already seems to support the trend. Boutiques and galleries touting local arts and wares are popping up everywhere, and people are flocking to handmade markets. They've learned that buying something original doesn't have to burn a hole in your pocket, and that these kinds of presents signal a return to the kind of giving that's much like looking someone in the eye and telling someone that you care about them. No gift-wrapped giant-screen TV will ever do that for you.

Chris DeKnikker

​Denver's version of the national Buy Local Week, hosted by the Mile High Business Alliance, will serve as just such a reminder when it kicks off today at 1:30 p.m. with a Tennyson Street Local Flavor Guide release party and mayoral proclamation at Big Hoss Bar-B-Q. If you go, stick around and take the guide's advice: Tennyson Street, fresh off a summer-long construction project that obstructed access to many businesses along the stretch from 38th to 44th avenues, is a lovely stroll and ready for just such a boost.

After that start, how can you continue to honor Buy Local Week on Black Friday and beyond? To begin with, Saturday's Small Boutique Crawl will focus on some of the city's best little shops featuring local merchandise.

And here are ten more ways: