Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1182230
C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 9 125 E ven the retail holiday, Small Business Saturday, was created nine years ago to bring the holiday shopping frenzy back home and personalize the gift purchasing experience. Visitors and locals alike know the Monterey Peninsula offers no shortage of mementos and souvenirs celebrating the unique character of each com- munity that makes up this world-renowned destination. "Carmel is the most expensive addiction—of all my addictions," jokes Laura Lamar, who travels from Chicago to Carmel three times per year, and loves stopping in at B. Real for scarves and at Carmel Bay Company for locally designed handcrafted jewelry. Carmel Bay Company also boasts a wide variety of locally sourced small curios perfect for gifting, like local artist Katie Ewen's small pebble cottages, Life at Sea stickers, Gooseberry Designs notecards, "The World's Worst English Toffee" and colorful unisex Suki bracelets. Beyond the bounty of shops and galleries, the area's numerous open ateliers, tasting rooms, and year-round farmers markets offer plentiful gifts that celebrate seasonal harvests and local artisans' creations. Also easy to find are several independent full-service packing and shipping shops to ensure found treasures' safe delivery. The Joseph Boston Store, located in the landmark 1845 adobe Casa de Oro in Monterey, and managed by the all-volunteer Historic Garden League, showcases locally created jams, honey, olive oil and balsamic vine- gars, cold pressed elderberry syrup from Carmel Berry Co., and beauti- fully bottled bitters by Big Sur's The Bitter Ginger. A few short blocks away, the bustling weekly Old Monterey Farmers Market embodies the spirit of community, as shoppers and merchants swap stories while sampling and selling. There, Carrie Brendel peddles her Eclipse Creations, small-batch handmade soaps. The colorful blocks with even more colorful names like Leaves, Tell Me I'm Pretty, Put The Lime In The Coconut, and Punk Rock, a blue agave-scented salt bar that looks like a piece of granite, make perfect stocking stuffers and hostess gifts. The beautifully boxed Pantry Party Pack from Happy Girl Kitchen, known for its jams and marmalades, along with small party favor jars, are available at the café in Pacific Grove. Happy Girl Kitchen's creations are also stocked at Earthbound Farm Stand in Carmel Valley, The Phoenix Shop in Big Sur, and in Carmel at Prim's and Carmel Belle Café, which also features quintessentially Carmel gifts, like those by local artist Alyson de Guigné. Gifting artwork may seem tricky because of its highly personal nature,