While reading Liz’s blog, Wonder Woman I’m Not, the first sentence of her post Cutting Back on Christmas Spending struck a chord. She writes, “the approaching Christmas season is enough to strike fear in the hearts of anyone struggling with money.” Even when our pay checks our fatter, we have a large amount of people we buy gifts for (my husband is one of six plus partners/spouses, parents and a niece and nephew. Then there’s my side with 3 grandparents, my parents, a brother. Teachers, bus driver, extra-curricular teachers/instructors. Daycare charges). Although I set a tight budget for each person, we easily end up spending.
Liz also writes, “as an adult, it strikes fear in my heart. Fear of the money it takes to buy the presents, fear of the time it takes to shop and wrap all those presents as well as fear of what to do with all the stuff once it’s opened.” Amen, sister, to all the points. I do like to watch others open our gifts but I get anxious about how to organize it when it gets home. Also like her, I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining but the hustle and bustle and work to make it a wonderful memory for the children (and others) is very stressful no matter how you slice it.
Liz has some great ideas for reducing Christmas gift giving stress. I really like her suggestion of a family gift (especially for families that have one or two members that are really hard to buy for!).
How do you reduce gift giving stress?
2 Comments
Thanks for the link back! Wow – you have a lot of people to buy for. I guess I should stop complaining about the number of people I buy for 🙂 I'm actually ahead of the game this year, hopefully I can keep the momentum going. Sometimes I feel like blogging allows me to get more done since I feel accountable to so many people.
I've gone to homemade gifts and consumable gifts like lotion and cookies.
We also draw names for the 6 grandchildren. Instead of us parents buying 6 gifts that are small, we exchange names amoung the 6 grandkids and have them buy ONE gift that might cost more than 5/6 little gifts for everyone. It is fun as each child takes the time to hand their gift out and receive a thank you. Actually, we have a close friend that does it with our family so that is… 9 kids.
Then, we do couples baskets/stockings that we fill with candy and homemade things for each pair.
Thanks for the link. I'm reading up now.