Gift Giving Madness

I think that the first important thing to look at, before we even start to look at what gifts we are giving (and how much they do, or don’t cost), is to look at who we are giving gifts to.

Sometimes the list gets pretty extreme. I have friends in different parts of the country who give gifts to their DRY CLEANERS for goodness sake. I’m not saying that it isn’t nice to think of various folks, just that you need to do a sanity check on how many people you are gifting.

Some people that you give gifts to probably wouldn’t really notice if you stopped. I don’t think that the Drycleaner would hold it against you if they only got a card Others, like girlfriends or extended family, might actually be glad for you to initate a conversation about scaling back on gift giving. After all, if you give them a gift then they also have to spend time, thought and money getting a reciprocal gift. Not having to worry about it may actually be a relief. You’ll never know unless you bring the topic up!

So where do I stand currently on the whole gift giving issue?

Well, in my immediate family-ie sibilings and parents, we have decided to just give gifts to the children. So right now that means that I have 2 gifts to buy on my side, and 1 gift on DH’s side. But I don’t feel right not getting anything for my mom, dad and mother-in-law, so for the Grandparents I make a food basket-Until this year I’ve also been doing it for all four of my siblings anyway. I think this year I think they are just going to get one or two very small munchies instead of a full basket. Or I may just stop the siblings all together.

DH and I have a group 3 other couples, all with kids, that we hang out with a lot. The standard, started before we moved up here, was to give gifts to the children but not the adults. Well, that is 7 children! Last year around this time I started telling everyone that I was going to make each family a large bucket of caramel corn, and then each of the children was going to get a small token type gift, under $5. I knit each of the girls 2 fuzzy wristbands, and I bought each of the boys a dollar store umbrella and stenciled their name on it with a paint pen. I felt a little guilty when the Christmas party came, because Princess and Buddy received gifts that appeared to cost much more-but I’m sticking to my guns. I want the whole thing to downscale, and I was totally honest with everyone ahead of time about what I would be spending.

I will probably do a very small gift for each of the nursery school/daycare providers for Buddy (8) and Princesses teacher (1). If I have extra I’ll give a token to the mailman, trash guys, and busdriver, but I don’t plan to stress on it.

Personally, I feel I do a bit less than most folks, but even so that is 26 people, if you count the mail, trash and busdriver! And that isn’t even talking about DH and the kiddos.

Shopping for 26 additional folks can really put some extra stress and strain on your holidays. Could I opt out of even more? Probably. I don’t think that the nursery school/daycare staff would think anything if I only gave them a card (-8) and I could totally skip the mail, trash and busdriver (-3) bringing it down to $15. But most of those folks get a small batch of homemade cookies and the like, so it is pretty easy to make an extra batch or two and cover everyone.

I enjoy thinking about the holidays, doing some shopping and making some gifts, but I don’t want the effort to turn the entire season into a frazzled mess. I’m pretty happy with who I am doing things for and am starting to generate a plan to prevent overload. More on that later!