Aside from perhaps piles of wrapping paper and empty boxes — all of which can be recycled in the City of Natchez — the Christmas 2013 season is pretty much over.

We hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas. We especially hope local businesses had a successful holiday season — their sales success leads to greater sales tax revenue in the City of Natchez, and that ultimately benefits all of us.

It may be too early to know just how well retailers fared this holiday season, but we know they had a few headwinds to overcome.

First, the calendar — with Thanksgiving Day falling on the latest possible date this year — didn’t give retailers much of a break. The shortened holiday shopping season may have slowed sales in some stores, but on the other hand, it may have led to some urgency on the part of buyers that helped others.

A slowly recovering national economy may have further hampered holiday spending this year, though some early indications are that national spending is up over the previous year.

We hope that’s the case, because local retailers are important to our community’s economic health.

We’re approaching some of the traditionally slowest months for most retailers — January, February and March.

That’s why it’s important for all of us always remember to shop at home first. If you got a gift card for Christmas or you didn’t get what you’d asked Santa to bring, we encourage you to get out soon and spend a little bit with our local retailers. You’ll be benefitting yourself and your community.