"Shop at home" is not just a motto for local businesses; it's the essential underpinning of a healthy retail economy.

For a couple of decades, all along Main Street and particularly downtown, stores have come and gone, some so quickly the sign has hardly been hung before it is taken down again.

Every now and then the city, the chamber or groups of business owners plan some effort to improve downtown. Some of these undertakings reach their goal and some fizzle.

Anything that can be done to make Lebanon more attractive to shoppers - whether that's trees and benches, economic incentives to fix up old buildings or campaigns to bring in new shops - will help, but in the end it is those of us who are shoppers who have the greatest impact.

If you look around, there's a lot you can buy in Lebanon, from fresh-made cakes to cars, from made-in-Lebanon chocolates to fair trade imported goods from around the world. If you are looking for any of these - antiques, pastries, flowers, appliances, wedding dresses, bicycles, clothes, archery equipment, carpets, musical instruments, fishing poles, art, furniture, teapots, books and shoes - you'll find them here.

Before you head out of town to a giant shopping mall where you'll walk farther from your car to the stores than from one end of downtown to the other, look around in Lebanon. Start at Academy Square and go all the way to Cheadle Lake. Check the side streets too.

Stores that have enough customers to pay the bills and have a little left over are more likely to stay around, so spend some of your Christmas money in Lebanon.