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s children and adults alike put the finishing touches on their Christmas wish lists, local retailers are continuing their final preparations in advance of the annual holiday shopping season.

It is a time of year, where buyers seek the best deals and where retailers seek customers to help make their year.

With every day removed from the calendar, the marketing campaigns for many of the nation’s largest retailers will kick in, promoting the latest and greatest items, for the best and lowest prices available.

In fact, many websites have already leaked images of the newspaper inserts that will be distributed around Thanksgiving Day, highlighting their Black Friday sales, door buster sales and once-a-year pricing on big-ticket items.

For residents of Vicksburg and Warren County, many of those large retailers are out of town. But while we do not have some of the bigger names, we have something far more valuable, far more important to our everyday lives. We have our neighbors.

Vicksburg is blessed with an amazingly strong retail market, made up of mostly locally-owned and operated stores, offering unique items — not just those items used to fill out your gift list, but everyday needs.

Earlier this year, the National Main Street Association honored downtown Vicksburg as one of the nation’s best, touting the work of the city and other organizations in reducing downtown’s vacancy rate to just 5 percent. And that figure is only getting smaller.

With each passing month, there are new businesses, new restaurants and new development downtown. There are jobs being created and the hustle and bustle of downtown on many evenings and weekend are great to see.

For this development to continue — and the development of Vicksburg’s overall business community to continue — we as residents must be the ones to make the investment. We must turn our buying habits from those retailers out of town, to those right here in Vicksburg.

By shopping local, you support local schools, help create jobs and help build a business community that supports by those we call our friends and our neighbors.

Christmas is just around the corner, just like the best way to complete your shopping list and help Vicksburg at the same is just around the corner right here in Vicksburg.