As the shopping streets fill up again in the run-up to Christmas, it’s a good moment to stop and think about what we’re buying, from whom, and where it all ends up.

Given the bombardment of advertising we’re all subjected to it’s really easy to go with the flow and assume that this time of year has to involve endless spending, often leading to people just racking up unmanageable debts. It doesn’t have to be that way. It certainly doesn’t have to reach the level that’s seen almost every year now with people climbing over one another, even coming to blows, to reach the latest bargains as some stores deliberately whip up a grotesque shopping frenzy.

There’s more choice out there than ever before, especially with the growth of online retail, but it’s important to remember that we can make a real difference when we choose where our money goes. The ‘big box’ retailers which dominate the high street are more likely than most employers to use zero-hour contracts, and to pay their staff poverty wages. Some of the biggest names in retail not only exploit their staff, they also jump through every loophole to avoid paying their taxes too. They’re happy to benefit from other people’s taxes, which pay for the physical and social infrastructure we all depend on. But their highly paid tax consultants make sure that their own Corporation Tax bills are brought as close to zero as they can get away with.

The high street in this country is dominated by these giant multinationals, but there are other options out there too. Shifting even some of your Christmas spending into small, independent businesses can help to level the playing field, and ensures that money keeps circulating in the local economy too. Small Business Saturday, an annual event to encourage people to opt for local independent companies, is coming up on Saturday 5th December and offers an opportunity to highlight the successes of the local economy and the value of shopping locally.

There are many factors you might want to take into account, from a company’s climate change record to whether it’s owned co-operatively by the workforce, or how it treats suppliers in poorer countries.

And at the end of the day, when the festivities are over what happens to all that stuff? How many Christmas presents end up gathering dust on the shelf, or heading to landfill or a waste incinerator within months? Looking for gifts which will last, or which don’t generate heaps of waste should be a big priority.

For many small businesses Christmas is their make or break time. What better gift to give than voting with your feet and trying local stores.