Ah, Christmas. Visions of sugarplums and trips to the mall? We have been having a lot of conversations at work around gifting and how everyone handles it. One thing comes up again and again is how to deal with expectations and also how to make gifting easy and fun!
One would like to think that their significant other would just "know" them and what they love. But there are times when it helps to have hints. Our daughter Sam came to the rescue one year after many years of Steve making the late dash to the mall and not really having any idea of what gifts to get for me or them.Thats when google came in handy!
If you have a google account it's easy to make a sharable document in google drive. Sam prefers to use spreadsheets, while Kate goes with a document. You can provide links in either. This is my list here. This has made it easy for us to email the lists with all the family and make them accessible on phones. And setting them up on google drive with the link makes things even easier! It also makes sticking to a budget much more reasonable!
Having the list which feels like a registry gives us so much freedom. We usually do a lot of online shopping, with as much shopping local as possible mixed in. With the list you know you won't disappoint yet there is still the surprise in what is picked out. Surprisingly anticipation is almost heightened and everyone seems excited for the big day! And of course you can always go off it!
I think the reason this has become a saver for us is that while I enjoy gifting and love receiving gifts, for Steve it's not a big deal. So he is able to hit a home run while not being stressed out of his mind! And it leaves room for casual and fun shopping trips that are more of a date than a stressful run thru a mall.
Do you think you would give something like this a try? Or do you have something that works well for your family that you could share? I love hearing how everyone manages to make the holidays their own!
Gift giving outside of my immediate family is my least favorite part of the season... (makes me feel like a grinch). It goes back to expectations. It stresses me out to buy things for people I don't know well, even if they are family. My sister in law made an agreement a few years ago that our families wouldn't exchange gifts & we're both really happy with that. On my side of the family we rotate names every year so we only have 1 family to buy for instead of 5. When it comes to my immediate family- I do 99% of the shopping for everyone, including for myself. Ran doesn't enjoy going shopping, but I do! So this takes the stress off him & ensures I always get what I want- lol. While a fun surprise gift might be nice, I'm totally cool with our arrangement. Im sure things will change as our family grows older, but for now we just focus on the kiddos & making sure they have the merriest holiday possible.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh...gift giving for the family at large is the MOST stressful! We finally made an agreement to buy for kids only which brought stress levels way down. And I love how you handle your immediate family. Thankfully Sam loves working with Steve, though next year she may be too busy off at college so things may look different then! :)
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