"Shopping local" should not be like flossing your teeth (something you say you do around your friends, but secretly never do, for some vague reason). What makes downtown SLO so great isn't its high concentration of chain stores and cheaply priced made-in-China junk. It's the real-life, flesh-and-blood small business owners, who provide thoughtfully curated gifts and handcrafted goods every day of the year. Our boutiques are unique, quirky, and creative. If you haven't yet shopped locally this season, do it, lest you want your heart to shrivel into some sort of horrendous Grinch-y organ. The SLOcally Made Creative Market and Experimental Space is open through Dec. 24 and features way cool local gift ideas made by way cool local people. Shop these wonderous wares—which include works by bakers, leatherworkers, weavers, painters, metal smithers, screen printers, and more—and meet the resident artisans, many of whom are strong, creative female leaders in our community. Yes, you'll even walk away with that tingly "just shopped local" clean feeling!

Doors open daily at 10 a.m.; 874 Monterey St., San Luis Obispo. Δ

Hayley Thomas Cain flosses all the time. She can be reached at [email protected].