Conflicting advice for wise Christmas shopping

As Christmas draws near, I'm wrestling with conflicting thoughts on how best to fill my gift list. And I'm getting conflicting advice, as well.

It has been a tight year where I live, in what I only somewhat jokingly call the House of Chaos. So I have approached the holidays with a fair amount of caution and a lot more bargain hunting than in some years.

I pay attention to the deal of the day on various Web sites. And I take a serious look at the ad inserts in my newspaper.

But when it comes time to plunk down money for an item, I stall a bit.

I'm tempted by a lot of great online deals, especially when I can pair them with free shipping. And in my current crazy-schedule life, the ability to do all my shopping at 11 p.m., in my bare feet, the cat curled on my lap, is more than a little appealing.

But I'm hesitant because I wonder about the lasting effect on others who live in my own community and who work at the local stores where I am not shopping at 11 p.m. If I make fewer purchases in my community, I'm clearly not contributing as much to the local economy. I might not even be doing much to help jobs in those far-flung communities where the warehouses physically sit, unless they use real humans for all the jobs.

If I order that shirt online from the department store, how does that translate for the clerk who's waiting at the department store itself, a few blocks away, so she can ring it up should I choose to select it in person? You remember her: She also pays taxes and shops here and our kids are good friends.

But wait! Online, I'm helping my mail carrier and other delivery folk keep their jobs, right? I know that making sure we have a healthy mail service is important to me.

Aaaagh.

This week, I covered a press conference by Local First Utah in which Salt Lake's mayors, both city Mayor Ralph Becker and county Mayor Peter Corroon, signed pledges to spend at least 10 percent of their shopping budgets in locally owned stores.

They're not even talking only about physically going to bricks-and-mortar stores in Utah to buy gifts so that there are jobs for clerks and shelf-stockers and others.