Christmas time is here with Christmas carols being heard from every store speaker, wreaths and garlands being tied to every light pole, lights being strung up at every house and credit cards getting whipped out of every pocket. With Christmas time comes holiday spirit and cheer, as well as a draining of the wallet so pronounced it almost makes a sound. Are you one of those people who can be found frantically rummaging through bins and aisle the day before Christmas until the time the store closes and they practically have to drag you out by your handbag? If so, then you probably need a little help organizing your Christmas shopping.
Before you do any shopping and before you even think about hitting those sales, take a cue from Santa. Make a list and check it twice. Who cares if they were naughty or nice because you still have to get a gift for them. Write down every single person or family you will be buying or making a gift for (skip a few lines between each person). You do not want to have any surprises close to Christmas where you have completely forgotten somebody. Think of family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors. Then sit with your budget and determine exactly how much you are going to spend that year on gifts overall. You do not want to be faced with a credit card bill in January that makes you drop dead from fright. Once you have your budget all set, next to each person’s name, write down a maximum monetary amount you are willing to spend on them, which you will stick to like it was a law.
By each person’s name, jot down a few gift ideas, based on their likes and dislikes. Feel free to ask each person’s spouse or friends what they have been talking about as far as gifts go. Also, at this point, you will want to determine if each person will be receiving a store-bought gift or a homemade gift (like cookies or a crafts item). You may want to do a little color-coding of your list at this time, or simply separate the list into two different lists: one for store bought and one for homemade. If you will be doing any homemade gifts, go to your calendar and set aside a day or weekend to get these gifts taken care of. One other group of people you may want to color-code differently are those who live out of town that you will be mailing the gifts to. In this case, these are the people you will want to focus on first and foremost, since you will want to be sending these gifts out as early as possible (at least the first or second week of December).
When going out shopping, you must take this list with you. It is so easy to fall prey to seeing a great bargain and then picking up that item with the notion that you will find somebody to give it to. Sure this may work sometimes, but you must fit each person with a specific item, not the other way around. More times than not, this bargain item will sit ungifted. Buy your Sunday newspaper and scan the advertisements, specials and coupons. You may be surprised to see that many of the items on your shopping list are on sale.
Finally, mark a day on your calendar for when you want to have all of your shopping done and stick to it. Make sure this date is well before Christmas actually arrives. Also mark a day on your calendar to spend wrapping, unless you like to wrap each gift as you purchase it to save extra time.
