Holiday shopping at Queens indie stores and more in the QNYC Evening Edition for Friday December 7, 2012

Shop at local Queens indie stores during the holidays (and all year long, too!)

We’ve put together another shopping guide, this time for brick and mortar independently owned shops throughout Queens – Astoria, LIC, Forest Hills, and beyond. This is a great time to help boost the local economy with beautiful things handpicked by folks in your communities. We hope your find this guide useful, as well as our guide to local artisan gifts, too.

See who’s going to be at the next Queens County Market

The December 2012 Queens County Market is chock full of great vendors selling everything from chocolate to curry, sauces to tea, spices to salsa, and more. Old favorites like Mel’s Melting Pot (try their apple quince sauce) to the Queens Harvest Food Coop’s Buying Club, who will be there for the first time (we’ve participated in the buying club and it’s terrific). There will also be some holiday cocktails involved.

Singlecut Beersmiths tap room opens tomorrow, Saturday 12/8

Just a reminder that the SingleCut Beersmiths tap room is opening for the very first time tomorrow from noon to 6pm. This should be an amazing event. If you’re worried that there might not be enough beer, let us allay your fears with this photo:

Image source: SingleCut Beersmiths

We’ll see you there tomorrow!

Feng shui is a big deal at the Vista in LIC

The Vista is a new condo development that is selling extremely well, in part because of the feng shui treatment the building and the residential units have gone though. According to Jennifer Dorfmann, executive vice president and director of sales at Modern Spaces, a number of the early purchasers were interested in the building specifically because of the feng shui treatement the building has been given. In Dorfmann’s words, “the Vista is like the motherland” for feng shui enthusiasts. Last month they had a blessing ceremony at the building and it was very well received. We’ll be curious to see if other upcoming buildings in LIC will join the club.

Broad Channel kids want everyone to have their houses back

The Wave – the Rockaway newspaper that was severely affected by Hurricane Sandy – is back and they’ve published a selection of wishes by local kids for this holiday season. The backstory: they all come from PS 47Q in Broad Channel, and fifth grader Jesse Sanchez inspired the first and second graders to write down their wishes. It is a heartbreaker to read, but within the wishes you see that these kids really are thinking about others beyond themselves, which really is an inspiration. They wish that everyone could have their houses back. A few wishes:

By Brooke Arnao, Grade 1

My wish is to help everybody in New York. I also need a lot of help. I lost my clothes and my toys. I really want the whole world to be the same again. I just want everything to go back the way that it used to be.

By Kara Malloy, Grade 1

My wish is that everyone can have their power and their homes back. I do not care about presents. I want everyone to be happy and then I will be happy. I also wish my friend Genevieve could have her power back. I also wish that poor people could have a home because it is sad if they can’t go inside from the cold.

By John Kelly, Grade 2

I wish for everyone who lost their houses, toys, rooms, walls, and floors, to get all this stuff back for Christmas. I want everyone happy again! This is my wish.