I am all about less fussy gift shopping. If buying gifts makes you miserable a Christmas–you HAVE to find a way to refine your process or you will begin to hate giving and the whole season. Truly, I’ve seen this happen. A whole side of my family doesn’t give gifts because the process became so bogged down and everyone hated it.
I love gifting (I think one of my love languages is gifts…really). I love giving, I love getting, I love looking, I love buying. Ask my mother-in-law…I start sending ideas in October. :)
What we do in our family is send an email for each person full of links to items that would be well loved. Some say this takes the spontaneity out of gift-giving…but in our family–it works. My husband sends out an email with particular items linked to where they can be purchased. We try to note in the list if other people in our family have things from that store–that way the purchaser can combine shipping and discounts! I send out a list for myself and then one for our boys. Their list is usually combined because we do a lot of “shared” gifts.
This year, we are also having our kids and their cousins draw names for the first time. We are doing this so they get to experience the particular thrill that is to choose something special for someone you love. For me, it makes things more complicated, because it involves taking the kids to the store (I think shopping in real life will illustrate the point more fully than shopping online with them). However, I think the MORE PASSION side wins out over the LESS FUSS side in this occassion.
In fact, I’ll likely make other things even less fussy–just so taking 2 preschool boys Christmas shopping doesn’t put me over the edge into– “I hate this season”-land. That can happen easily, especially if you are already overloaded on holiday cheer. For some, cheer morphs into crazy busy, over committed, poorly planned, and festive-ed out.
That’s sad! Let’s commit to making the gift buying part of Christmas the least fussy of all. I am on a mission to help you with that. All next week, I’ll have lists upon lists for all the people in your life. Hopefully, you can do all your shopping right from The Tiny Twig. ;)