Christmas is this weekend, and I am all wrapped up in the preparation. If you need me this week, you can find me over here baking, cleaning, relaxing, wrapping, and shopping in preparation for the holiday.
I talked about how my family does gifts last year, but as I am sitting here wrapping some of my own presents, it seemed appropriate to share once again.
See, I have talked to a few friends recently about choosing presents for people and they have informed me that the way my family does things is crazy and totally un-fun. I happen to love it, though. It’s what I’m used to – and it’s pretty freaking efficient. And I’m an econ major. I’m all about efficiency.
Allow me to explain…
We basically shop for ourselves. As in, I would say I usually know what is under the wrapping paper of about 85% of the gifts I open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In fact, I wrap some of them myself. My mom buys a lot of her own gifts. We ask my dad what he wants and buy those things for him. My aunt mostly takes charge of buying the gifts for her kids and my uncle. And for the purposes of Christmas morning, we buy “Santa gifts” that sit out unwrapped for me and my younger cousins.
We manage to sneak a few unknown gifts under the tree, too, so the wrapping isn’t just a formality. But yeah, mostly, we know.
So how does all this work?
Well, my extended family members give me (or my mom) a budget. They essentially say, “This is what we would spend on you. Go get something you want.” Then, I go shopping, or my mom goes shopping, or we go shopping together, and get some stuff. Ta-da! We just bought our own Christmas presents. Sometimes, we “receive” the gifts early and use them as if we bought them with our own money. Other times, we actually save them until Christmas.
We take them home and wrap them up, complete with gift tags bearing the name of the “giver”. Before we head to my grandparents’ houses on Christmas Eve, we load up the car with not only the presents for us, but with our presents for the rest of my family. We settle up with our relatives at some point around the festivities.
Doesn’t this ruin the spirit?
Not for me. If there is something that someone really thinks I will love (or that I think someone else will love), we can still give that gift. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule that we have to buy our own gifts. It just makes everything a little easier. We all know we’re “giving” something the recipient will love. We hardly ever receive gifts that we want to return to the store, which makes the days following Christmas nice and relaxing. And hey, sometimes there’s even a little delayed gratification involved, since we usually put aside whatever we buy until Christmas.
Plus, the real spirit of the holidays comes from spending time with loved ones – and we still totally get to do that.
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I love this concept!! My parents have begun to give us money which is really what we all need anyway. I actually took a lot of time to think about what I wanted to give people this year, so I started my Christmas “thinking” in early November. I think until you are financially capable on your own and have a comfortable cushion on money, getting a financial gift from the parents is best.
I honestly wish that it was socially acceptable to just exchange money as gifts most of the time. It’s the best way to make sure everyone gets what they want!
No, it’s totally good! It’s a fun way to do things and just adds to the christmas charm! There’s still love there 😉
Haha it’s kind of like saying, “I love you so much that I want you to get exactly what you want… with my money.” 🙂
This sounds like something our family would do…except we wouldn’t wrap the gifts, lol! So you do have some tradition in there. I agree it is very efficient, and it seems basically the same to me as someone ordering off your online wish list. Though there might be a time, place and circumstance for the unrequested, special, hand-picked gift that they would never think to get themselves, you can still do that even with your family’s method, and for the rest of the time, when you’re drawing a blank and would probably end up getting them something they don’t use/possibly don’t even like that well, you can rest easy knowing that they are getting a special something from you that means a lot to them. Makes sense to me. ?
Exactly!
So interesting to hear how your family does Christmas! My family does a half-version of that, so occasionally I’ll ask for something in particular. I totally see the upside of getting exactly what you want/what you’ll use! That’s awesome 🙂
Thanks, Christine! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
This could totally work; there is no formula for gift giving. And I love how you all do it! 🙂
I hope you had the best Christmas, Emily!