Shopping local helps communities & makes you a star gifter
Your gift list can do more this year when you buy locally — you’ll support people & projects in northwest Alabama, you’ll share stories of what makes us special AND you’ll be known as the best gifter ever! Here are some ideas to get you started (click links for details):
- COLBERT COUNTY is your destination for music-lovers on your list. FAME Studios, in Muscle Shoals; Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, in Sheffield; and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. in Tuscumbia, have on-site & online gift shops full of T-shirts, artwork, stickers, magnets, caps, sweatshirts & more. Looking for local art? Also in Tuscumbia are Fiddledee D, a non-profit artists’ collective, and the annual curated Winter Art Market, at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art. And if the story of Tuscumbia native Helen Keller has inspired someone on your gift list, honor that connection with a donation to Keller’s birthplace, Ivy Green. Or what about “tickets” good for a 2026 on-site performance of “The Miracle Worker”?
- FRANKLIN COUNTY offers history & the outdoors for everyone. Shop the Red Bay Museum and the next-door Civitan Depot Thrift Store of Red Bay for you-can-only-find-them-here treasures. If you want to give experiences, schedule some outdoor time with your giftee at Bankhead National Forest — nothing beats the beauty & solitude of a wintry day outdoors.
- LAUDERDALE COUNTY boasts several museum gift shops with meaningful & impactful options: Florence Indian Mound and Museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright-Rosenbaum House, Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, Pope’s Tavern Museum, and the W.C. Handy Museum and Library of African American Digital Music. Got a student headed to the University of North Alabama, in Florence? Find all things purple & gold at the UNA bookstore on campus or online.
- LAWRENCE COUNTY is another northwest Alabama county with abundant history & outdoor recreation. Visit gift shops at the Jesse Owens Museum and Oakville Indian Mounds, both in Danville, and the Pond Spring, the Gen. Joe Wheeler Home, in Hodges. And the town of Moulton is an additional gateway to Bankhead National Forest.
- LIMESTONE COUNTY is prepping for the holidays with concerts & other special events. Check with Athens-Limestone Tourism for ideas and then schedule some family and/or friend time this festive season. And what about IOUs for the 2026 Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention or the Athens Alabama Storytelling Festival?
- MORGAN COUNTY is the place for anything in the creative arts — stuff some stockings with performance & concert tickets or unique artwork from the Alabama Center for the Arts, Carnegie Visual Arts Center and Princess Theatre, all in Decatur. And you can delight every child — and every adult, too — with the Cook Museum of Natural Science. Pair tickets with something from the fully stocked & oh-so-fun gift shop and watch your giftees smile!
Almost all of these suggestions are projects & programs MSNHA helps support. For additional inspiration, browse our website for links to more places to go & things to do. And come back here soon for another blog post in our “Six Counties — Countless Stories” series, where we celebrate what makes our six counties so special.
