‘Tis the season to buy presents

There definitely is no getting away from it now that we are in November.  The shops are full of it, the television adverts are all talking about it and even I, the person who is always last minute dot com, have done about a third of my Christmas shopping already this year.

So when do you do your Christmas shopping? There seems to be three definite groups of people when it comes to Christmas shopping.  Firstly, you have your ridiculously organised.  They are the people who do their shopping in the January sales and look extremely smug whenever someone mentions the ‘C’ word.  I have a number of friends who are in this category and not only do they do all of their shopping in the sales and I am talking presents, cards and wrapping paper, but they even have it all wrapped by February too.  I may scoff at these people, but secretly I am quite jealous as not only would it be lovely to be that organised, it is a fantastic way to save money.  The only downside to this I suppose is that when you are buying for children, there is always some new ‘must have’ thing that comes out in the run up to Christmas that I would probably end up buying as well and then I wouldn’t actually save any money at all.

Then there are the other group of people who buy little and often.  I also have friends that do this.  They compare it to paying money into one of these Christmas saving clubs; they put aside a certain amount of money each month and buy a few presents so that they don’t have the last minute rush and only have to pick up a few things in December.

Me?  Well I am in the last group usually, I get to this time of year and start to panic as I can’t remember what the children want and then I wonder how I am going to make one wage packet stretch for everything that I need to buy.  Invariably, as I am madly panicking, I ridiculously overspend and sit there shell shocked on Christmas day wondering why and how I managed to overdo it all and my husband sits in the corner crying and clutching his bank statement.  It is not pretty.

This year however, I decided that it was time for a change.  I am organised. Well of a fashion. I made a list and every time the children mention something they want, I note it down in a book and I have a list of things that a. have bought, b. want to buy and c. other people can buy.  This is very unusual and yes I am feeling somewhat smug about it.  There will undoubtedly be a last minute panic over something but at least it will be something small like the turkey or the vegetables and not presents for once.

Where do you do your Christmas shopping?  Again my friends seem to fall into two categories.  The stalwart shop lovers, the ones who like to go and see before they buy and are happy to walk miles around a variety of towns, shopping centres and markets before they have finally completed their festive purchases.  Now don’t get me wrong, I do love a good shopping trip and there is a definite feeling of satisfaction from returning home laden with armfuls of carrier bags, but as I usually have to add at least one child into the shopping equation and sadly this does not result in me coming home with lots of lovely bags, in fact I am lucky if there is one.

Online is the way for me these days and again, I have friends who would not consider doing it any other way (and yes, they all have young children).  Click, click and you’re done.  Most places offer reasonable priced or even free delivery, so it really is a win-win situation.  If you are willing to look around at some smaller online shops, you can also find some really unusual products too, not just the big name brands.  I have also found one other benefit of searching online for gifts as my poor husband keeps receiving mysterious emails about items that I really like from companies like the Best Gift Company which is currently one of my favourite sites and I have been able to give him lots of good ideas to make his present buying really simple this year.

So how about you, have you started to think about Christmas yet and if so when and where do you do your shopping?