Christmas Spending

Do you find you break the bank for Christmas gifts or do you have a special savings account for gifts? I figure out who I want to buy gifts for or who I can bake for. Some prefer my baking to store bought gifts. This year rather than chance the hordes of angry shoppers out there, it was me and my catalogs. I was able to order all the wonderful gifts I needed and they even ship them to whomever they're for. The ones sent to me will be hand delivered by me...All I need to do now is finish writing cards. Won't do any baking yet for a coule of weeks. Gosh, I feel so liberated...and for once I am not only on time but early! Didn't go over my budget either.

I love Christmas, but have been trying to wean myself off of the extravagant gift-giving for many years now, especially since retiring. The first year I tried to go "cold turkey" was miserable, so I'm doing it in slow motion now. Every year we lower the gift budget just a little bit more...it's hard, but necessary. I dread cutting people off my gift list, but next year we'll be cutting out two whole families whose children are grown and moved away. I've been sending each of the four adults and six children little gifts since they were born (~ 20 years for the oldest one), but figure it's time to stop now.

But at least we do our Christmas shopping in such a way that most of the bills are paid BEFORE Christmas...e.g., I keep my eye out for good gifts all year long and often pick them up when they're at good sale (or even clearance) prices; we use a dividend system that pays out every December; and we save up various store reward points and use them for the stocking stuffers.

[ December 01, 2005, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Eagle Heart ]