Christmas shopping, the most stressful part of the holidays, can be made much easier if you remember a few simple rules:
1. Don't try to outdo anyone or anything. You don't need to do better, or even as well as, last year. You don't need to out give what you got last year. Save the trees, yo. Or the whales...or something, just chill out a little bit.
2. Never take your husband shopping with you. I know, I don't have one, but still, I did for ten years. I used to think it would be a fun date night and after five years of this nonsense, I began writing myself a letter after each Christmas to read before the next Christmas, full of reminders of what went right or wrong that year. One letter read "DO NOT take L*** shopping. He will play with Legos the entire time, and then decide not to let you spend any money, and you will just have to come back and do it alone later." This happened every year.
3. Men are hard to buy for. I found a solution this year. I had a day with just my boys, and I went shopping for all of the men on my list. Then, I made a point to tell the men that the boys were so excited because I let them pick out presents for them. That way, the men can't complain about what the kids pick, and I am totally off the hook trying to choose something myself. (For instance, my father in law is getting a toy rocket. He will be less than thrilled, but since the boys picked it out, it's cute rather than tacky.)
4. Don't shop on Black Friday unless it's for yourself. You just don't need the stress. You don't want to have to kill some other mom over a Tickle Me Elmo and spend your holidays in jail with your face all over the news next to Elmo. It's embarrassing, really.
5. Don't go to the toy aisle in December. If you aren't done shopping for your kids by Thanksgiving, you're just screwed, and you need to give up and use it as an opportunity to let Santa do the punishing for whatever messed up thing your kid is doing at that point.
6. Don't spend more than you have. That's not funny at all, is it? But it's just stupid to go into debt over a holiday that is better spent focusing on something other than Buying More Crap. If you want to pay for Christmas all year long, you need to start the January before, not the January after.
These are my rules for shopping, and I'm still considering just not doing any of it this year. Especially when it's an hour past bedtime and the kids aren't anywhere near sleep...sounds like a Santa lesson to me.
