I don't do any Christmas shopping because I never have any money. Even working 50+ hours a week there just isn't anything left. The struggle is real, especially in this economy.
We don’t really do much Christmas shopping anymore. We’ve been gradually shortening our list. We started doing Friendsmas because we got tired of family drama. This year will be our 3rd one. We do little gift bags for the adults. The guys all get the same thing. The gals all get the same thing. We do buy actual gifts for the kids, though.
I’ll probably start within the next week, though. This year, it’ll just be my boyfriend and I for the most part. I’ll send everyone else gifts or cards with money.
Done.
Have to wrap now and get in the mail within a few weeks.
I search all year long for the “right” gift for each person. I’m picky about what I gift because to me a Christmas gift is my version of giving to the Christ Child. I rarely give expensive gifts, but each is special for each person. And every gift has a clue attached ... one year I didn’t give clues and it nearly started a riot! 🤷♀️
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That sounds wonderful, Shy! I feel the same way about it symbolizing gifts to Jesus. We also have a stocking with the Nativity Scene on it that we used to use exclusively for putting our Lottie Moon Christmas offering for International Missions on the altar table at church, as a gift to Jesus.
I’m interested in this clue thing you do. Care to expound on what you mean? What are the clues to?
When someone picks up a gift from me, all the flurry stops with: “I GOT A CLUE!”
... the gifted gets first guess and then everybody else jumps in with ideas.
I tend to give things other people don’t think of so many of the guesses are really hilarious.
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Oh no - we always travel to someone’s home for Christmas. My great-niece chooses where Christmas will be and we all have either 2 or 3 days to get there before Christmas Eve church services!
More than once I’ve had to run to the grocery and start cooking because they’ll all be descending on my house!
It’s a hoot.
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Ohhhh....your comment about putting gifts in the mail threw me! I thought you meant that you do this long distance! That sounds like so much fun! But why do you wait until the last minute for her to decide where it’s going to be? That sounds stressful to me!
It’s VERY stressful ... but all in all I don’t think that anyone really notices because it turns into a zoo with so many people.
I ship big packages to their homes, and I keep small things back to travel with me in case it ends up being somewhere else.
... I have a feeling that this year it will be in TX tho. My sister just had major surgery and is not recovering well, having issues.
Want me to toot the horn as I go thru AL?
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I can’t imagine doing all that. For most of our lives, we knew that we would be spending EVERY holiday at hubby’s parents’ home. And now all of them are at our home. The only thing that changes is the DATE we celebrate, because we work celebrate it on the date that most of them or all of them can be here, and that’s not always on the holiday itself, because of work schedules. We’ve celebrated as late as after the New Year!
I gave cash last year and everybody seemed to be happier than times prior. Cash is always a big hit lol. People truly do over-complicate the holidays, in which gift-gifting should be secondary anyways.
No. We haven’t celebrated Christmas, even secularly, for ages. We stopped doing presents - for events like Christmas and birthdays anyway - and just don’t decorate for holidays. About all we do is have a festive meal, either just the 3 of us (my daughter & son-in-law and myself), or with a couple of friends. It sure takes 99% of the stress out of the holiday, and we don’t miss the “Yay! Presents!” part at all.
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