Many people worry about gift-giving during Christmas time, but I never do. My entire extended family is pretty small, and they all live outside of my city, and many live outside of the country. My immediate family is not very big on the whole holiday celebration (I think we’ve stopped having a Christmas tree after I turned 13 or 14).
As for friends, I usually only send Christmas cards – there hasn’t been a tradition of gift-giving among us (except for Secret Santa during college). Even for my birthdays / Christmas, I’ve received cash as opposed to gifts from my parents.
So Christmas for me is usually fairly low-key in terms of gifting. I usually buy 3-4 gifts: something for CB, something for his mom (usually a Starbucks card), something for my parents (maybe some movie tickets so they can finally go on a “date”), and… maybe something for my aunt. But really, that’s it. Christmas shopping rarely costs me more than $200-$300. Actually, I don’t think it ever has.
It’s nice not stressing about buying gifts for the holidays.
How much do you usually spend for the holidays? And do you ever stress about buying the perfect gift for a loved one?
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I always try to spend no more than $200, but this is the first year that I’ve been feeling a bunch of pressure to spend more- most of it coming from my equally broke friends & family. Seriously, I was sitting in a conversation where someone actually said “It’s impossible NOT to go into debit for the holidays…” I know I was the only person sitting at that table with a different opinion. So, I’ve started letting people know one at a time that I’m just not spending that much (friends are TOTALLY not getting $40 gifts for both them and their spouses!) on them.
It’s hard now, but January will be much mroe pleasant.
we limit our spending to family and close friends. Now that most have kids, we have a $5 /kid limit and a $10/couple limit. I make a lot of gifts, so that cuts the budget.
we stress about giving to my brother and wife. they have expensive tastes, she even emailed me the new coach bag she wants (‘in case i need some ideas’)…. so, this year, I’ve given up trying.
Seriously Kate, your brother’s wife emailed you a link to the new coach bag?? Your brother should get that for her!!
I’m like you Well-Heeled. My family isn’t really big on gift giving during Christmas. I think it is because i’m blessed with parents who will get me whatever I want (within reason) when I ask them for it. And I don’t ask for stuff often now that i’m 24 and working. My parents are usually happy without gifts, they just tell us they want obedient children who will end up happy and successful. Makes it easy
Plus, my family is 15,000 miles away and this will be the second Christmas without them 
My BF’s family on the other hand…Christmas is really the only time they get gifts (along with their birthdays). And he has a lot of nephews and nieces. I told him we’ll spend max $20 per child, but that will still put a big dent in things, so might have to reconsider and make it $10/child. Too bad they haven’t been taught how to take care of things, I like giving quality gifts but it’s not worth it with them.
I’ve never really had this problem. I make a lot of the gifts I give (last year it was 12 different kinds of cookies, 3 kinds of Chex mix & several other snacky foods). We do small gifts (candles, calendars, ect.) for other stuff, or small gift cards.
Something that really helps, which is a trick that I learned from a good friend of mine, is to take $25 out of every paycheck and set it aside in a Christmas account. My grandma used to have her “Christmas Club” account, so this is basically the same thing. I have mine through ING, so it grows a little during the year, too. A person could do $5/paycheck, $10/paycheck . . . whatever you’re comfortable with taking out per paycheck. Trust me, you don’t even miss the money! My friend and her husband both do this and it adds up so you don’t go into debt during the holidays.
Holidays should be all about enjoying your family, friends, and appreciating what you already have, not how much I can afford to spend on you!
Ahhh, I was going to write a very similar post. You beat me to it.
I don’t have a gift-giving situation with any of my friends, so it’s just my family members I have to worry about. We are very into Christmas because it’s one of the few times we get to see each other. I know them well enough to pick out gifts I think they’ll really like, and I willing to spend the money rather than spend less and get them some trinkets they probably will not like as much.
My sisters and I like to go in on more expensive gifts for our parents, but since the cost is split three ways it doesn’t cost as much!
Oh boy do I stress! We spend about $40 per person (down this year from $50) and we also have 3 December birthdays to buy for (also around $40 each) for a total of…11 gifts and a total of $440 just on other people. We aren’t even getting each other gifts this year
I read that the Black Friday deals are going to be some of the best in three years. Because of the economy. I have been saving up for a new flat screen.
I noticed a lot of people nowadays opt out of buying gifts for their significant other in order to be able to afford gifts for other people. Not that that's wrong (trust me… I do it too) but I feel that almost defeats the purpose. People go way overboard with gift giving (example: door man, hairdresser, etc.) and after Christmas they sit in their living rooms totally broke.
I personally love making gifts myself and found that most people appreciate my effort and actually enjoy the homemade gifts better than the store bought ones.