Of course, we’d never be so audacious as to tell you how or where to spend your money. We know our place. Nevertheless, here’s a challenge that is as perennial as the leftover turkey in the refrigerator: Shop locally.

By locally, we don’t specifically mean Des Moines or West Des Moines; Urbandale or Windsor Heights; Clive, Pleasant Hill, Ankeny, Altoona or any of the other suburbs that collectively make up Greater Des Moines. It can mean that, of course, but we’re thinking more broadly. By “shop locally,” we mean “shop Iowa.” You’re going to spend the money regardless, but why go to Chicago, Minneapolis or New York and infuse the budgets of other states’ governments with your sales tax dollars? Just a thought. It’s your money, but – we’d be remiss in not pointing this out – it’s also your state and your communities.

It’ s a small thing we’re suggesting: a commitment, really, to Iowa and an understanding that part of the solution to the state’s stagnant government revenues and the survival of Iowa’s retail businesses rests with consumers. Most people relish the idea of distinctive businesses, such as those found in the established Valley Junction, the growing East Village, the just-beginning Metro Market and the eclectic but often-forgotten unique businesses hidden in Iowa’s 950 municipalities. However, it’s not enough to have a one-of-a-kind business that we can point to as evidence of Iowa’s growing diversity and Iowans’ increasingly discriminating tastes. The survival of those businesses depends on local patronage.

Try some variations of the “shop locally” theme and make holiday buying an adventure. Turn shopping into a scavenger hunt and determine if it’s possible to check off every last item on the list without leaving the neighborhood. Vow only to give made-in-Iowa gifts. See if the item you’re seeking is available at a mom-and-pop hardware or variety store before breezing through the doors of the super-duper big-box store. Buy locally and pay the sales tax, even if an item is available in the sales-tax-free zone in that great nebulous beyond known as cyberspace. What’s so adventuresome about clicking the mouse on a virtual shopping cart and virtually filling it with merchandise you can’t touch, feel, taste or smell? Online shopping is convenient (unless you consider the possible closure of bricks-and-mortar businesses that might lose sales to the Internet inconvenient), but, well, unimaginative and boring.

“Shop locally” isn’t just a mantra we trot out every year about this time. Dollars spent in Iowa are an investment in what we have here, the return on which includes tangibles like higher cash-register sales and more-difficult-to-measure quality-of-life improvements. Collectively, we can make a difference by keeping our holiday dollars at home.