Small businesses need your support to survive.

Erik Chalhoub here, admitting that I’m not a great holiday shopper. I’m thankful for the Weekly’s gift guide section that’s been a source of inspiration, although I’ll probably rely on the “last-minute gifts” portion of the guide that’s running on Dec. 19.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, which was once a day where people would camp out in front of big box stores hours before they opened, hoping to be the first to walk through the door to score some deals, at the risk of getting trampled. Thankfully, that seems to be mostly a thing of the past, as “Black Friday” is now just a term that retailers throw around throughout the month of November, whether or not there are any actual “deals.” No camping required.

The day after Black Friday, however, is on the upswing. Small Business Saturday was a term coined by American Express in 2010 as a way to encourage customers to direct some of their dollars they were spending at big box stores to small, local shops.

Since then, consumers across the country have spent $17.9 billion on that day, according to a survey commissioned by American Express. Adrianne Jonson, co-owner of Artisana Gallery in downtown Pacific Grove, reports that her shop generates about 40- to 50-percent more in sales on Small Business Saturday than on Black Friday.

For this week’s cover story in the Weekly, I met with the folks at the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce as well as various business owners in P.G., hoping to get a sense of how sales have been for them this year. As we emerged from the presidential election, where one side was proclaiming the economy was in shambles, I was curious to know what was actually going on at the ground level, from the people who live the ebbs and flows of the economy every day.

The result? Things are a bit of a mixed bag.

But the one constant that is always true no matter how the economy is going: if you want to see your local businesses survive, you’ve got to support them. I hope after reading this story you’ll be inspired to check them out and open your wallets.