Who doesn’t love to Christmas shop? My only problem is if I add everyone I have to buy for and all of the amazing things I want to get them together it ends up costing a few months salary. To save ourselves from going broke my family and I have a few rules at Christmas. 1. Make the gift an outing. Every year my entire family goes to dinner and a play. Its a Christmas gift for everyone and we get to enjoy each others company at the same time. Life gets so crazy its nice to carve out time to spend together. Last Christmas we saw The Lion King. This year we will see Hamilton (in may).
2. White Elephant. My cousin hosts for both sides of her family every Christmas which adds up to over 15 adults and 8 kids. Instead of trying to buy for everyone we do a white elephant gift exchange. Everyone chooses a number and in order you pick a gift from the pile or to steal someone else’s already opened gift. It can be tricky to find a gift that relates to a wide range of people but here are a few that have been big hits.
Board & Card Games. There are so many to chose from!
Coffee Mugs. Everyone needs them and if you get the right color or phrase people will steal them away!
Shower Speaker or Any Electronic.
No offense to my husband but men will fight over anything electronic and consider whoever ends up with it the ultimate winner.
3. Parties. Katie & I are hosting a party this year. Let’s be honest we all shop for ourselves all year long (most of our friends from links on this site 🙂 ). There really isn’t anything we would buy our friends that they wouldn’t purchase themselves. Instead we are having a Christmas movie pajama party. Bring your favorite treat, a bottle of wine and slippers. Cue the chick flicks!