He brought Nathan to bed with us. Now if you know Jeff you know how strongly he feels against NOT bringing Nathan into the bed with us, so for Jeff to cave in on this issue means we were past the point of rational thinking. So the next morning there was no way in hell that I was waking up at 4:30am to shop. AND.. well we're broke. We're broke, broke, broke. Yeah, I know... what else is new???
But the whole broke thing really got me thinking about Christmas. As I get older I find the less I truly want under the tree, and instead I've been looking at several different sites and checking out toys for Nathan. So far Nathan has about 5 different toys and we've decided to stop there - after all, Nathan IS a baby and its not like he's keeping a score card about what he's getting. I plan on getting a few more books for his library, and that's about it. But for Jeff it's a different story. I just ordered two gifts for him and I've limited my budget to $150. Now that may seem like a lot, but in the past I've tended to go a little crazy with gifts at Christmas. I just like buying things, I like the whole process of thinking about what the perfect gift is, where to find it, and buying it and wrapping it. And I especially love watching people open the gifts. This time round I'm going to be looking for great gifts for Jeff that also don't cost a lot. It's going to require a lot more creativity from me, and I'm paying more attention to sales/bargains and the such so I can not only get more ideas about what to get him, but the best prices as well.
I've also crossed some people off my list. My sister and I for example decided last year not to exchange gifts and instead go out to dinner with each other. Karen is in London right now, so getting time with her is infinitely more precious than something material. I don't really exchange gifts with friends anymore (I think we're all in the same boat right now money wise!!), so the gifts also go to the following:
- My cousin
- My father
- My mother
- Jeff's mother
- Jeff's niece Alli and nephew Brian
- A $20 gift card for our postman (if you saw the hill of death we live on, you'd know the man deserves a little thank you for hiking up here to deliver our mail!)
- And I also need to get little gifts for the women who watch Nathan at Daycare. I'm thinking Dunkin' Donuts gift cards.... Though Jeff thinks this isn't necessary since we pay a LARGE sum of money for the privilege of taking him there....
Here's my question? What's your budget for the holidays? Do you exchange gifts with certain people, or with everyone? Who makes the list??
2 comments:
For the last several years we've limited Christmas gifts to immediate family only - Patrick's parents, my parents, Patrick's sister, her husband, their two kids, my sister, her husband and her two kids. We generally only spend in the ball park of $25 each.
We stopped giving Christmas gifts to each other a few years ago. Growing up my mother and her best friend never gave Christmas gifts to each other since it was such a crazy time of year and focused their efforts on their birthday presents instead and we've decided to use that method as well.
Of course given our close our anniversary and birthdays are, we generally only do one or the other. Or we get lazy like we did this year and we didn't do anniversary gifts, birthday gifts and it's not looking like Christmas gifts either.
I made a spreadsheet this year to budget out our christmas presents and to keep track of how much we spend. It was completely nerdy and also completely necessary. I'm like you, I go overboard buying stuff for other people. So, this year we're budgeting. And I'm keeping track of every penny that I spend.
Even with a budget, we'll probably spend too much. Between me and Kristian, we have something like 17 people to buy presents for. Not including each other. And my mom's family does a secret santa!
I'm going to try and do a lot of homemade gifts this year. They're (sometimes!) cheaper and usually a little more heartfelt if you make them right.
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