On Buying Christmas Gifts For Your Children

On Buying Christmas Gifts For Your Children

Tis the season for buying Christmas gifts for your children. The stores are having sales, your kids are making Christmas lists and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by it all. You remember Christmas as a kid and you want to make Christmas for your kid just as special as you remember your childhood Christmases being. In some cases you might want to be doing more since you might not have the best memories when you were growing up.

How do you decide what to give your kids? How do you make Christmas special without going overboard? Should you stick to the 4 presents rule that is going around social media? Should you have a firm limit? What do you do if your kid asks Santa for something you simply can’t afford?

There is a lot to think about when it comes to buying Christmas gifts for your children.

There are a few things you can do to get more organized and to come up with a good plan so that they can have a good Christmas and you can feel good about what you buy them.

Stick to a plan

This is a must. If you just walk into toy stores buying random gifts, you are going to go overboard. Start with your budget. Talk it over with your spouse and think about how much you want or you can spend on each child. Start writing down ideas. Have your kids make their Christmas lists too. That helps a lot with figuring out what would be best and what you can afford to get them. I usually start sometime in November and start putting things into Amazon. I put them in my cart and then hit “Save for later.” When I do that, every time I go to my cart Amazon will give me an updated list of prices and then I pretty much stock the site to try to grab the gifts when they go down in price. It also allows me to have a place where I can organize what I will be getting them. I have done this for years and it is a great way to stay organized.

Play Santa

I love Santa, I always have and we have never had anything but good memories from him coming to our house. This year we only have one little boy who still believes but I know the magic will still be there. His brothers know not to let him in on the secret so I hope they stick to that. As for the Santa gifts, what I have always done is just wrap up everything and put “to” on the gift and no “from” if it is something that is either from us or from Santa. I know this won’t work for every child. Some kids will want to know why it doesn’t say who it is from. But my kids? They don’t seem to mind so it works for us. To them, Santa comes on Christmas and leaves a few gifts. The rest are from mom, dad or other family members. I do use different types of wrapping paper as well.

Talk with them about Christmas giving

I think it can be great to talk with your children about why we give presents in the first place, why we celebrate Christmas, the story of the birth of Jesus or anything else that can go beyond just making a Christmas list for their favorite toys. It is good for them to see why there is a Santa in the first place, why families give each other gifts and what we can do to help others during this time. I think it you can do this it won’t matter as much what you actually give them. I also tell them that just because it is on their Christmas list does not mean they are going to get it. The Christmas list is not a genie in a bottle, it is there to help others know what they are into that year and what they might like to see under the tree.

Try not to stress

At the end of the day your Christmas has to look like your Christmas. You know your own kids, you know what works and you know what you can give to them. See what you can buy your kids from their lists, shop sales and look for deals. One year, all my son wanted was a Darth Fader Lego Figure. At the time I thought the only way to get it was by buying a $100+ Lego set and that wasn’t going to happen. I looked and I looked and finally I found the Lego watch that came with a figure too. It took some time to figure that out and it wasn’t the first thing I thought of but it was great to see his face on Christmas morning. Other years we have not been able to get them their #1 toy. It happens. I remember always wanting a Cricket doll and I never got one. Kids get over it. So when you are busy looking for those gifts, try not to stress if you can’t make one happen. There are other things they might enjoy and you can work towards buying those instead. If you do have a disappointed kid on Christmas, use it as a time to talk about others, gift giving and how some children don’t get anything at all. There are ways to use that to help them understand more about other people.

Do you do anything specific when you are buying Christmas gifts for your children? Any great ideas you have come up with over the years?