Best of Holiday Shopping 2012 – did your favorite stores make the list?
On Sunday The Roanoke Times published the Best of Holiday Shopping 2012 guide, which among many other features listed the best places to shop based on our readers’ votes. (For information on how the voting was done, click here.)
We asked readers to vote for the best businesses to buy locally made arts and crafts, Virginia wines and beers, and Virginia Tech and University of Virginia gear. You can check out which businesses made the list here.
We also asked for the best place to buy gifts for your significant other, a cook, a sports fanatic, your pet, clients and for someone who has everything. If you are looking for some guidance in the gift department check out the best of gift ideas lists here.
You’ll also find info on the best weekend shopping destinations, best outlet mall, holiday light displays, bargain hunting and advice on choosing the right Christmas tree.
Are there local businesses that you think readers should have voted for? Let us know by leaving a comment.
November 12, 2012 - 12:35 PM
Amanda, have you heard this as...
Best shop for the guys who love to grill is a pool shop. WaterWorks on Orange Ave carries green eggs and a lot of accessories. Ethan keeps bringing in great rubs, so we never leave empty handed. Since we started going there for charcoal, last year I did baskets with pool floats (discounted because it is winter time) and gift cards for all my friends with pools.
I was a little puzzled by the fact the best place to get a gift for your special gal was a sewing machine place. What better way to say I love you at the holidays than a gift she can use to sew your clothes. I’m sure a package of dishwashing gloves and a new vacuum would make her feel even better!
IDK, I’d be thrilled with a brand new Bernina Greg, to sew my own clothes.
Yeah, the sewing machine idea kinda surprised me, too. Considering the line at the cutting table in Joann’s everytime I go in there, the fabric should be part of the gift as well. Does Joann’s have gift cards for their store?
@Kathy: JoAnn’s does have gift cards. I was surprised to see a sewing machine on the list, too, but honestly, I think it’d be an awesome gift. I use my 94-year-old grandmother’s Kenmore sewing machine from 1974, and I love it, but something with more bells and whistles would be a lot of fun! (Not that I have a lot of spare time to sew anymore with a baby, but someday I will be able to get back to it!).
My hubby gave me a sewing machine several years ago for Christmas, and it is one of my most favorite gifts ever! I even sewed something for him yesterday… the beginnings of a new seat for his tree stand.
People sniff at appliances for Christmas, but I’d completely love a Dyson or a Kitchenaid stand mixer.
I can’t keep up with how seldom you update this blog, but here is an article that would make for a nice column sometime before Thanksgiving…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/thanksgiving-shouldnt-black-thursday-target-215753491.html
Wow I stand corrected. I still stay clear of appliances and work time items unless they are specifically asked for; however, I’m sure a gift that can be useful is better than bad perfurme or unwanted jewelry any day.
I’m with you Greg. If my wife said “Hey, I want a Dyson”, we’d be at the store the next day. We buy appliances when we need them or if something strikes our fancy. When it comes to Christmas, it’s more about fun than practicality
@crooked road: I am working part time and updating the blog three times a week. Thanks for the link. I’ve been working on a similar piece for Sunday’s Retail Roundup column.
The weekend prior to Thanksgiving weekend is one of the most lucrative sale weekends of the year. A Sunday publish will effectively miss one of the crucial sale weekends.
Just sayin’…
@crooked road: The column is about Black Friday store hours, so the timing of its publication will be just right.
I’ll reword my post. For a vast majority of items, the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving is just as lucrative as the ‘Black Friday’ weekend, with about a third of the traffic. Sure, you might not be able to buy the $249 HDTV the weekend before Black Friday. But you can buy something similar online, and you can buy most of the items you typically buy in the stores. How many HDTVs do we buy each Christmas? At 11 pm/2 am/6am on Thanksgiving weekend? Or blenders or whatever else the big boxes order us to gobble in our ‘sale frenzy’?
Like I said – Just sayin’…
Ive never heard about the weekend BEFORE thanksgiving being lucrative!
Something I’ve noticed the last couple of years is that I’ve found better selections of items the week before Black Friday. A lot of people wait until that weekend to shop and by the time the day is over everything is picked over or gone. The pricing the week or so before is not that far off from Black Friday prices and the selection is better.
straight road…for grocery stores probably.
Anybody that cares can check the pricing the weekend before Thanksgiving on a couple dozen items, and see that they’re as good as on Black Friday. Like I said, there may be some slow cookers cheaper, or the usual extremely limited quantity of HDTVs, etc., but the stuff that a many people buy a lot for Christmas is as cheap the weekend before Thanksgiving as after. Mock if you like, it’s no big deal. It will be you getting up at 3:00 in the morning, or staying up all night after your Thanksgiving meal, just to buy what you could have bought the previous Saturday at 2:00 in the afternoon.
Oh yeah, Kristen, I know you’re extremely young and all, but as you mature, you’ll discover that the time to buy groceries for Thanksgiving is TWO weekends before Thanksgiving, not the weekend before. Actually, never buy groceries on any weekend, but the point remains – whether groceries or holiday presents, ‘the peak period’ is not the time to buy anything. Turkeys are no cheaper now, nor will they be prior to Thanksgiving, than they were on November 1st. Nor are any other of the stereotypical Thanksgiving food items. Decades of shopping gives experience, and that’s just a fact. You’ll learn, decades from now, hopefully.
Unless you’re going to buy the aforementioned HDTV for Christmas – something most people do about once every couple of decades, you typically do just as well prior to Thanksgiving as the day after. Yeah, yeah, you get the Keurig coffee maker for $30 less, but I don’t need to stay up all night and battle against other hyperactive shoppers just to save $30.
Anybody that cares enough, on Monday, check the prices on the most popular size & brand HDTV from Best Buy, Amazon, Target, WalMart, Sears, and any five other retailers you desire. Guaranteed it will not be 5% different from Black Friday pricing.
To each his own, crooked. I’m old enough to know that I don’t need my vegetables wilting in the fridge for 2 weeks before the meal. If all you’re buying is canned and frozen stuff, I guess if doesn’t really matter when you buy it, but most of what I buy is fresh and it’s not enhanced by an extra week.
Spin it however you want, Kristen, the point is still that you’ll learn, eventually. In a couple of decades. Supposedly ‘fresh’ vegetables that are used in the typical Thanksgiving meal are not affected by seasonal discounts or a week in the fridge crisper drawer. That’s okay, though, pretend whatever you need, it’s fine. I’m not really sure what you’re going to claim is wilting by being bought five days sooner than your imaginary insult that only sale prices occur at the last moment. Apples? Onions? Potatoes of any kind? Squash? Any root vegetable? Corn, well out of season? Legumes, out of season?
All you need to do, which I’m certain you won’t, is to check pricing on sales today, then on sales on Sunday. But hey, your post wasn’t really about that. it was about being snippy towards something you didn’t understand. That’s cool. Enjoy your holiday, and all the festivities involved. It is a special time of the year.
I want to weigh in on this holiday shopping issue. CR is actually right in this regard on pricing. Like I said, I’ve found just as good or better pricing weeks before Black Friday. What you’re not going to get before Black Friday is the add on deals and the doorbusters. For example, I bought an iPod from Walmart a couple of years ago on Black Friday and it came with a free $50 iTunes card.
One more thing on those doorbusters though. Sometimes they aren’t as good as they appear. One year Best Buy had a $200 laptop and it sold out in the first hour. They also had a $600 laptop that I picked up later that day and was a much better deal. The same thing usually goes for TVs. Walmart had an HDTV on sale for $50 on one of their doorbuster sales and the TV didn’t even have HDMI connections.
Sometimes the hot items are only available on Black Friday. I think Best Buy did that the year the Wii came out. But as Brian from Goodview will confirm, you don’t always need to stand in line to get those deals. A lot of times you can get those online too.
I don’t buy big box crap on “Black Thursday” ever, crooked, so whatever your post is supposed to be about is pointless to me. Just sayin’.
Oh and crooked…I apologize for being younger than you are…I guess if I’m lucky in “decades” I’ll have lots of time to spend on the internet bossing people around about when and where they should buy their groceries. Something to look forward to in retirement. Just sayin’.
Thanks, OG. I know that you are a budget smart shopper, and obviously take the couple of extra minutes to look beyond the cliched ‘deal daze’. Much respect for doing so. Obviously, in my effort to inform people, some chose to act offended without ever checking the facts. That’s no problem. I know when to save money, and will continue to do what I’ve done for over a decade by shopping when I do. No big deal. I don’t hit the malls on Thanksgiving evening, and I sleep in late the next morning. I suppose my ‘crime’ was stepping outside the cliched media days to inform people on bargains and not fitting in conveniently to the cheerleader clique. Like I said before, not my loss…
crooked road, the only one being “snippy” is you. You’d think with as many “decades of experience” as you have, you might have learned by now that you can convey your point without being condescending. sheesh.
Kristen, your earlier post made me think. What ‘fresh vegetables’ do you plan for your Thanksgiving meal? I’d be interested in learning about them, and knowing which ones are so susceptible to ‘wilting’.
As for you thinking I was ‘bossing’ you, well, hopefully you’ll come to understand advice is not ‘bossing’, like most adults do. Advice is given, and either accepted or rejected. Criticized? Well, then discussion occurs, and that’s where you seem to lack the experience.
As I requested above, I’d love to hear your ‘fresh vegetable’ recipes for Thanksgiving, as I’m very much a staunch supporter of fresh local foods seasonally harvested. It will be interesting to hear your concepts, and which fresh vegetables you say that I need to be sure to source as closely to Thanksgiving day as possible to maximize freshness.
All I have to say on the matter is this… I will not allow my life to be dictated by “bargains”, whether that means shopping on Black Friday or sitting around researching trends to see when I could get nearly the same prices weeks before. I simply have better things to do with my time.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the rush people get from Black Friday Shopping. But recently I’ve found realy good prices without having to get up and go out so early. I still go out but I go later in the day after the crowds have died down and after the people who would stab you in the eye for an Elmo have gone home. It’s more of something to see and do than it is trying to buy gifts for me now though.
crooked road, let me go on record as saying I couldn’t possibly care less what ends up on your table, and if you think your twee bullying routine impresses me one iota, you’d be wrong.
Spiny, I agree. Dedicating precious time and energy to save $1.24 on some appliance isn’t worth the effort. I’m crazy enough to have paid full price for my Keurig from Target without even checking the price at BB&B.
#7 I got a Kitcheaid mixer one Christmas. Great present because it was something I probably wouldn’t have splurged on on my own. This was also when I had to start making some of my own gluten free stuff and the Kitchenaid was the mixer that could handle the thicker dough.
Kristen, so there’s NO recipes involving ‘fresh vegetables’ that you want to share? My goodness, what attitude is that to have at Thanksgiving? You told me about all these ‘fresh vegetables that it was imperative to buy as close to Thanksgiving as possible. I explained that I’m all about fresh, local & seasonal. And when innocently asked, you react in such a harsh manner. Gracious, it almost makes me think you were making up a foundation to just argue with me.
It’s not about impressing you, it’s about asking to see your cards. Feel free to lay them out, or just continue to tap dance. It’s your choice.
If it’s not about impressing me, you’ve succeeded, crooked.
Hmmm… seems motherhood has mellowed fair Amanda. I get why the posters were allowed to fight amongst themselves in her absence, but this puzzles me.
@Spiny: Indeed it has. But I think you’re right, the bickering has gone on long enough. Let’s get this thread back on topic, please.