By Sean P. Ray | Managing Editor

With the onset of December and Black Friday behind us, the holiday shopping season has officially kicked off.

In support of all Northsiders who wish to shop local this year, The Chronicle has reached out to several neighborhood businesses to get their advice on the best gift ideas.

City of Asylum Books has utilized its website to help shoppers this holiday season. The bookstore has put up two holiday catalogs on their website, cityofasylumbooks. org, to help shoppers find the items they need. One catalog is dedicated to children’s literature, while the other is for adults.

Phoenix Tefel, store manager of City of Asylum Books, said the holiday season is “huge” for the retailer, with a lot of best selling books seeing a “massive uptick” once the season kicks off.

Black Friday and Small Business Saturday especially drive foot traffic. The bookstore offers discounts on both days, but also holds raffles for prizes like gift cards, tote bags and similar items on Small Business Saturday.

Even with how busy it can become, Tefel is looking forward to the shopping season.

“I’m really excited,” she said. “We had a really, really good one last year. It was super fun.”

As for what she suggests as a gift this year, two books sprung to Tefel’s mind. One is a recently released translation of “The Iliad’’ by Emily Wilson, which is an epic Greek poem about the Trojan War. For readers looking for something a little less weighty, Tefel suggested “Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh’’ by Rachael Lippincott, a time-traveling romance story which sees a modern Pittsburgh girl sent back in time to 1812 and finding love along the way.

“For any good Yinzer, I think that’s going to be a good choice,” Tefel said.

The holiday spirit is in full swing over at The Farmer’s Daughter Flowers, with the store decked out with Christmas trees, ornaments and more. As a matter of fact, ornaments are the name of the game in terms of holiday shopping at the store.

“For the holidays, we do a huge amount of ornament business,” said Lauren Work, the owner of the store.

These ornaments range from ones looking like cherry pie to cocktails to, for fans of Pittsburgh cuisine, pierogies. There’s also ones which look like elves, Santa, animals and more.

The holiday season is a big change for Farmer’s Daughter in terms of how the store normally does business. Work said the flower shop is normally event-focused, supplying flowers for things like weddings. During the holiday season, however, the shop gets more sales out of smaller knick-knacks and gift items.

Farmer’s Daughter also holds multiple holiday parties during the season, beginning in November and continuing through December. The store also has a workshop scheduled for Dec. 8 based all around making wreaths. Tickets to the workshop can be purchased over at the store’s website, my-site-101424.square.site/.

PGH Candle, located in Deutschtown, is celebrating its second holiday season on the Northside, and owner Kayla Hefferman is greatly looking forward to it.

“If it’s anything like last year, we should do pretty well,” she said. “The Northside has welcomed us with open arms and we’re very grateful to be over here with the community support we’ve been receiving.”

As for those looking to get a gift at PGH Candle, Hefferman suggested the store’s holiday sampler pack, which comes with the store’s four most popular holiday scents, as well as a limited edition bonus candle.

Those popular holiday scents are a cypress candle, a spruce candle, a candle called “Home for the Holidays” which smells like a mix of almond macaroon and vanilla; and a candle called “Mistletoe at Midnight,” which mixes saffron, amber and blackcurrants.

“It gives you a nice introduction to PGH Candle and what we’re all about,” Hefferman said.

This year’s bonus candle in the holiday pack is called “Ginger and Spice.” As to what it smells like, Hefferman called it a “unique take on a gingerbread cookie.” That candle is new to PGH Candle this year and is only available through the sampler pack.

For anyone looking to visit these stores, City of Asylum Bookstore is located at 40 W. North Ave., while The Farmer’s Daughter Flowers is at 502 E. Ohio St. and PGH Candle can be found at 839 Phineas St.