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Christmas gifts


Cerina
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How much I spend depends on who I'm buying for. I spend more on my wife because I tend to buy her something that she needs in some way.

 

5 people. More if you include the gift cards I bug my associates.

 

Gift giving is simple. Nothing gets opened until everyone arrives. Sucked because last year the kids didn't get to the house until almost noon.

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When I was happily married, I was buying for about a dozen. I put aside $1200 for all of Christmas-gifts, wrap, cards, stamps, hostess gifts, decorating, tree.

 

This year, I'll buy for about 6 and spend less than $200 total.

 

I never organized gift giving time. I grew up opening family gifts Christmas Eve night so started that as the traditional husband/wife gift giving night them Christmas Day for every other.

 

This year, I'll probably work and make quadruple time and sob at my desk for the whole shift.

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This year is homemade gifts. I give for about a dozen people. I budget about 300$. This includes postage to mail which I won't have to mail as much this year. We're having a family reunion this year instead for Christmas so a lot of people are bringing themselves and we're just going to get together at a bunch of different places, D'hanis, Boerne, Cedar Park, Wimberly and San Antonio and talk and drink. So my gifts are going to be things that can be eaten in a way... stuff like cookies and beer and wine or appetizers. I may make more snake socks for the smaller in my family that didn't get snake socks before and homemade garland. Or something else I spotted on pinterest. Sometimes I may get school pictures of me made when school pictures are done in September and put that in care packages I used to mail. One year I crocheted some snowflakes and dipped them in glue to make them stiff and gave those out.

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Our rule of thumb is plan ahead and stay within our budget. My wife and I buy for our nuclear family, our elders and then others (children). When those are tended to then a boss gift may figure in, given friendship and/or subtle not so subtle brown-nosing/appreciation.

 

We do our best to stay within $100 per our own kids. That much, less, or none for ourselves if financial constraints demand. $25 max for anyone else.

 

We're snipers, but not Black Friday Shoppers... those people are rookies, weekend warriors. We live this shit, represent!

 

Seriously, we hardly ever buy without a deal. Even if we can afford straight prices, we look for deals. We also will not hesitate to regift, if there is any way to trim the expense then we're on it. That said we're not cheap, just frugal. Quality above quantity.

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Good grief. We buy for Noah and each other and then 31 family members and close friends (actually double that, Noah often insists on getting his own gifts for people). Christmas easily costs us $2000-2500. We try to combine gifts as much as possible for spouses and families. This year our budget is tighter, and I'd like to cut that amount in at least half. I'm off to a good start. I stumbled upon some really awesome wall decorations at Garden Ridge for 90% off the other day.

 

Plus, we have up to 5 different family times we have to work in. After Noah turned 2, I put my foot down and insisted that Christmas morning was from then on going to be just the 3 of us at our house. Santa only comes to our house. The past 2 years we've actually started saving one of those gatherings for New Years and that's worked well.

 

This year I really wanted the different branches of my family to agree to adopt a needy family for the holidays instead of buying gifts for each other, but apparently I was too late in bringing the idea up because half my family is already done buying gifts.

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We buy for 2 siblings ($100 each, max), 4 sets of parents (was $100 per couple, but it's gone down pretty significantly lately), and our 2 kids. We also usually get our grandparents something like a fruit basket, tea sampler, or lately its been photo gifts of the kids. The last few years we've bought a joint gift to ourselves. This year I think it's going to be a roof rack and box for the car so that we can actually haul everyone and everything and animal down to Oregon. We've been able to get away with it but I think with the addition of the baby this year, Isis is going to need some space in the back of the SUV. My in-laws just bring 2 cars because they can't fit everything in one. (That's the other reason we need the roof box.)

 

We tend to put the focus on the kids but we also don't go too crazy because our families tend to get them a lot of stuff. Pretty sure Ethan is just getting clothes from us this year. He doesn't know any better. I have no idea what we're getting Quinn but it will probably stay under $200, if not $150. Last year we just got her 3 things: a play kitchen, a trampoline, and an easel. Ok, and play food and pots and pans for the kitchen. That's the stuff that she opened on Christmas day, we left the big gifts at home and just put them together for her. I wasn't wrapping those gigantic boxes.

 

We've stopped buying as much for our parents because we now give a lot of photo gifts and because they have enough crap already. Last year, I got my mom a webcam so she could Skype with us, and she still hasn't taken it out of the box. We got my dad and his wife a wine sampler pack, which they really liked. My in-laws are fairly loaded and buy themselves whatever they want, so good luck buying them something. They are fortunately pretty happy with the photo gifts and the occasional gag gift. They love being grandparents.

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We always used to visit hop on Christmas back when it was just my son, my wife and I. Now that we're a family of six our Christmas Day's default plan is for us. We make time to visit others prior to or on Boxing Day (the 26th). If someone, family, wants to visit on Christmas then yay. If no one wants to then yay too. Sounds Grinchy, but it's not that just low stress and more practical. We've found that, as in marriage, Holiday gatherings seem to work best when transparency and flexibility are front and center, figure out needs from wants and then work to fulfill them. So even though our default is at home, we're flexible.

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I usually buy for whomever will be physically present xmas morning, which is usually the gf, the former mrs tank, husband of the former mrs tank, and either my mom or the former mrs tank's parents depending on the year.

 

And of course the kid-- he usually gets a big gift the four of us chip in on, and smaller gift from each of us. And the grandmas generally go overboard for him.

 

I'll get my manager sonething nice, giftcards for my agents and lawyer. Everyone else gets cards.

 

Money spent depends on my situation. Some years I go all out, some it's handmade gifts.

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3 of us

Mom and mother-in-law

Mother-in-law's boyfriend

3 small nieces/nephew

Gift exchange for each family (drawing name)

White Elephant exchange with my family ($10 each)

 

We generally budget $600 and I try to add a little here and there when I can. This year we can spend about $1000, but we may just go to around $700.

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Two of us (I know I've already gotten $100 worth of stuff from Think Geek and I said that's enough but apparently I'm being overruled :p )

Dog (will get a bone and some toys)

Mom (she asked for a frying pan, will probably also get her some Disney things)

Aunt (bought her an ornament, no clue what else to get her as usual)

In-laws (parents, brother, and sister - getting a photobook for the parents, no clue what to get mom, probably a gift card for brother and dad, Her Universe gift card for sister)

Grandparents (photo book)

All of my cousins we spent Christmas with

A few of our good friends and their kids

 

This year I think for simplicity's sake I'm getting gift cards for all my cousins and friends.

I also need to make holiday cards for the first time ever. :p

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Guest El Chalupacabra

How much do you spend on Christmas gifts every year?

 

How many people do you buy gifts for?

 

How difficult is it for you to organize the gift giving family time with all of your family?

I'm in a small family, small circle of close friends, and I have no kids (when you have kids, big Christmases are important, and I get that, but all the close people in my life are all adults). So I only have about 6-7 people I am buying for, and we all have a mutual agreement not to spend a lot. I think we all have an informal, unstated agreement to keep gifts between $50 and $100. It may sound cheap, but we aren't. Its just not that big a deal to go out and buy expensive gifts. Cost of gifts does not equal caring, as far as I am concerned. Really, I am at an age and of financial means where if I want something, I go out and buy it myself. I don't need to wait for Christmas to someone to buy something for me. I would rather have a modest gift that actually means something, and something somebody put thought into, and thought about if I would actually like it. Not this season's gadget, like an iPhone or whatever.

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I know I'm getting old when I start to despise the consumerism behind Christmas. It all feels like an expected and dutiful transaction at this point and nothing more.

Being old and being cynical are not the same thing. Cynicism is a choice.

 

Long story, but given the drama around my family during the whole month of December, it's more of a realism than a cynicism. I'm way more cheerful and optimistic about most other things, but Christmas is just a really stressful and hard time of the year.

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my son, mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law, my nephew and niece and my ex-wife. and that's really about it. my friends and relatives get christmas cards/photos if they're like/i get around to it. i love christmas, november and december are certainly my favorite months of the year. decor and tree is going up this week.

 

 

 

as far as budgets go, i don't really have one. a lot of times i tend to purchase a family gift for my sister and brother-in-law, and at least one or 2 gifts for each nephew and niece. my mom and dad is just random. usually, a 12 pack of beer and a carton of cigarettes suits my dad just fine.

 

as far as keilan goes, i have no budget. i mean i certainly won't spend a fortune, but this year i'll spend close to $200 on him.

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I like to do homemade or locally made gifts when I have time. Too busy with work this year though, so amazon.com is my friend. I buy for husband, parents, inlaws, 3 brothers, 3 sisters in law, and 6 or 7 close friends plus work and an extended family gift exchange. I spend $50 or less on each of those, although sometimes more for the husband.

 

He has to buy for all of those people too so it adds up fast.

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I buy the most for my wife and my son. I don't think in terms of dollar amounts -- I aim more for a target gift-pile size that I can visualize and know when I've reached it, but it's hard to quantify to anyone outside my own head.

 

She and I share gifting duties for my mom -- about $50-$75/year for her.

 

We're kind of distanced from my side of the family, but if we're seeing them in a given year, we put together snack baskets for my cousins and buy a safe, middle-of-the-road, Everywoman gift for my aunt.

 

Most of our gift-giving is on her side, and she takes charge of that. She has a master list in her head with a set budget for each member. That's one of her talents and my meddling with it wouldn't help at all.

 

It all adds up to...several hundred, I guess?

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We found out last week that my uncle's girlfriend is pregnant with twins. He has a 10 year old from a previous relationship and they have a little girl who will be 2 when the twins are born next May.

 

So for Christmas I want to get them something that will help out. My original plan was to get them a family membership the Houston Zoo or Children's Museum or Natural Science Museum.

 

What do you guys suggest?

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