So. November. About seven weeks left until the winter holidays. TIME TO PANIC.

Or for those of us who lovvvvve gift-buying, time to YAY! Time to start spending time every day prowling around looking for deals. Time to start placing orders and squirreling them away, and forgetting what’s already there, and ending up with too much for some people and not enough for others! Yay!

And this means I only have about seven Tuesdays left to share gift ideas and great finds with you, and the last Tuesday or two don’t count because I do most of my shopping online and so most things I mention will require time for shipping. Well, unless you want to face the stores, which NO THANK YOU.

So that’s really only, like, FIVE Tuesdays, and so I think we’d better get started, don’t you?  I’m going to begin with a list of my favorite places to do online shopping:  with a flock of children and limited patience and poor winter-road driving skillz, I don’t like to go to stores if I don’t have to.  Except Target (*love-eyes*).

1.  My top favorite online store is Amazon.com. I buy practically everything from them. In fact, if I may whisper in your ear—you can get a free one-month trial of Amazon Prime (which gives you free 2-day shipping, even if you’re having it shipped to someone else), and then you can cancel it at the end of 30 days before they charge you. And I’m just saying that “right before Christmas, when you need to do a lot of shipping to yourself and to far-away family and friends” seems like a really good time for a trial.  Just saying.

2.  I also love to shop at Etsy.com.  When you shop at Etsy, you’re supporting artists and you’re giving gifts that are unlikely to be duplicates.  Allow extra time if you’re planning to order:  some things are custom-made, and in any case the artists are likely to be a lot busier near the holidays.

3.  L. L. Bean and Lands’ End are both good old faithfuls:  they sell quality stuff and they have great customer service.

4.  This last one is not actually a store, but if you like finding good deals you’ll want to keep an eye on Want Not.  She posts the heads-up on who’s having sales and who’s got free shipping.

Let me know who else you’d add to the list.  I’m always looking for good places to shop.