This year I decided to do all my Christmas shopping in Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Rosa. It’s an easy ride from Walnut Creek, so why not spend money in the shops and wineries and cafes of people hurt by the fires, and then wounded again when all the tourists pulled out and stayed away?

We spent a day in charming St. Helena in Napa Valley last week, where there is not a single store without a “thank you first responders’ sign in the window, all hand-made, all different. It felt deliciously wicked to give myself permission to buy what I wanted to, since it was going to a good cause!

Then last Sunday we drove up to Sonoma and Santa Rosa. It was kid-in-a-candy-store time on Sonoma Square, with all the indie shops with cool gift ideas. The only rule was: I couldn’t buy anything for myself. Which I promptly broke when I found the local an indie bookstore (gotta support those wherever you go!).

Then we took a grim drive up Highway 12. Unlike in Napa Valley, north of Sonoma you can see the burn, where it came down off the ridge and jumped the road. Burnt out barns and cars, devastating dead trees on either side. Very sobering.

Needing a drink, we stopped for wine-tasting and lunch in Kenwood. Our servers and wine-pourers opened up when we told them of our mission, and told us harrowing stories about entire wineries and vineyards lost up on the hill, including remarkable art and sculpture, and about having to clean the roadside tasting rooms and cafes for two solid days before reopening, due to smoke and ash on all the buildings. About losing tens of thousands of dollars in returned deposit for canceled weddings and parties. And about waiting for people to return…crickets…crickets….

Stories, too, like the Sonoma State student who was at that festival in Vegas, running for her life while people fell on either side, only to return to Sonoma and see her part-time job at Paradise Ridge go up in smoke.

I realized that relating their experiences was actually a therapeutic process for all the clerks and servers and store-owners we met that day, and that, as much or more than our money, our physical presence and our witness and support meant a lot to them. They are stories I’ll share with my friends and family when they open their gifts, too.