Local, Black-owned or big box? Here's where Long Islanders are shopping this holiday
Shoppers browse at boutiques along Montauk Highway in Bablyon on Nov. 27. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Verdel Jones’ holiday shopping this year is taking her to everything from local boutiques to big-box stores to online mega-sites — and her preference is to tackle her list in that order.
It's the "little boutiques" where you find "unique gifts," says Jones, 52, of Wheatley Heights, district director of guidance for the Plainedge School District. "Even if they don’t have a brick-and-mortar store, you can go to the online shops."
Jones, whose daughter owns a small communications business, says she appreciates how challenging it can be to keep a small business thriving, and that adds to her desire to keep her spending in her local community. "We make it a point to seek out some Black-owned businesses to support whenever we can," she says.
Joyce Adams, left, and her mom Diane Adams, of Hauppauge, shop at Chip 'n Dipped chocolate shop on New York Avenue in Huntington. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Marcey Matos, 47, a billing specialist from Amityville, says she feels so strongly about supporting Long Island's Black community that she posted on the Black Long Island Facebook page, "Only buying Christmas gifts from Black-owned local businesses. Please drop your links below," and got 165 comments. "I wanted to bring it to the forefront so other people can see it and see if they want to do the same … in order to support Black-owned businesses and encourage people to become entrepreneurs," she says.
Long Islanders’ strategies for holiday shopping run the gamut. Some are local-only devotees. Others say they want to go into department and big-box stores to see and touch what they are choosing. Still others, due to Covid and the emergence of the Omicron variant, are still gun shy about making in-person trips where they might run into a crowd. Shoppers’ reasons for their choices range from wanting to pump money into their communities to loving the convenience of having gifts delivered to their doors.
PANDEMIC STILL AN INFLUENCE
Sometimes, they have to rejigger their priorities to get the gifts they want. When Jones wanted a bubble-making toy for her nephew, for instance, she needed to go to Target. However, she couldn’t find exactly what she wanted for him on shelves there, so she says she turned to go to her last choice — shopping online.
For others, the online mega-sites have been go-to lifesavers this year. Alyson Berman, 40, of Massapequa, a lawyer who is home schooling her four children ages 10 to 1, says she typically buys gifts for her kids throughout the year in stores and puts them aside for the holiday because with four children and eight nights of Hanukkah, she needs 32 presents. "That’s a lot of gifts," she says.
But this year, she avoided taking the kids into stores as much as possible to keep them all healthy. "I relied on Amazon a lot," she says.
Ellie Black, of Deer Park, shops on New York Avenue in Huntington on Nov. 27. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Angela Guinan, 41, a stay-at-home mom from Lindenhurst, also says she’s also doing her shopping mostly online. "I know there’s a lot of issues with supply chain," she says. "We’ve been lucky." Even when some gifts weren’t in stock on Amazon, for instance, they were back in stock a week later and arrived two days after that.
The gifts she buys for her son, Trey, 5, and daughter, Abby, 3, are primarily toys, she says, though there have been a couple of curveballs. "They throw in an unusual request now and then," she says. For instance, her son asked for Sonic the Hedgehog bedsheets. Grandma and Grandpa were able to find a set online, Guinan says.
The Guinans will go into a store for their present for each other — like many families who have been spending a lot of time at home for the past two years, they are upgrading their living room furniture. Guinan and her husband, Tom, 45, who works in finance, plan to purchase a new couch for Christmas. "We really want to be able to sit on it and see it in person. We really want to know if it’s comfortable," she says.
MIXING IT UP
Susan Candia, 51, of Dix Hills, is mixing it up this season, enjoying the advantages of each method of checking off gift recipients. Because she’s been in front of a computer so much this year, Candia finds herself "skimming" and surfing for ideas and items more than usual. Her family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas, and she buys for her two teenagers, her husband and extended family members.
Shopping online helped her suss out a coveted gift for her daughter, Ava, 15 — a Dyson Airwrap hairstyler that she found was sold out everywhere she looked — and a specific mountain bike she wanted for her husband, Brian, 50, who works in marketing. She finally found the Dyson Airwrap at a store near Penn Station, and the mountain bike from a California company that is shipping it to her home.
And she has ordered online from what she calls "mommy sellers" — individuals who work out of their houses making items such as costume jewelry. The challenge with ordering online for her immediate family is making sure nobody opens a package that comes to the house that might have their present inside, thus ruining any surprise, she says.
In addition to her online shopping, Candia also hit the Black Friday in-person sales with her daughter, doing "a lot of damage" at the Tanger Outlets in Riverhead. "It was fun, but it was a zoo," she says. A bonus from that day — she even scored a gift for herself at the outlet’s Bloomingdales: "I got a jacket for my husband to give to me."
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
