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The Albert Lea Tribune has a challenge for you: Buy all your Christmas gifts in Albert Lea and the small towns nearby.

Don’t go to Austin, Mankato, Rochester, Owatonna, the Twin Cities or Mason City.

Stay here. Buy local. You’ll be surprised at the selection you find and the gasoline you save.

Here is how you do it. Make a list of all the people for whom you want to buy presents. Jot down next to the names the gifts you plan to give each one. For the people you don’t know what to get, leave blanks. You can get ideas for those folks as you shop for the other goods.

Now look at the items on the list and decide which stores have them. For some items, you might not be able to picture which stores have them. That’s OK. Go shopping for the ones you could picture, and when you are at those stores, ask around for shops that sell the other items. Clerks in Albert Lea are rather helpful.

This is the fun part: Follow their advice and you might find yourself in stores you never had been in before. You might find items you never knew were for sale in the Albert Lea area. You even might find gifts for hard-to-buy-for people on your list.

When shopping becomes a personal discovery, that’s when it becomes fun.

Discover your local retail market. There’s more here than you might imagine.