Christmas Shopping List

How many people are on your Christmas list?  I was stressing out that our list was growing by 2 kids this year with our own child and my niece.   Then I think of my mom who continues to buy gifts for all of us kids, our spouses, her grandkids, all of her siblings, neighbors, etc. and my grandma still gets gifts for all her children, grandchildren, AND great-grandchildren; I don’t know how they do it!  I’m not talking gift cards here either.  They shop, wrap, and ship these gifts to us and to all their family members.

While they give me motivation during the Christmas season, I did have to cut back on our gift giving list so we can buy more gifts for the kids.  Now the next question with my husband was about our child who is still so young, not even 1 year old yet, how should we do gifts for him?  We decided to each buy him a couple gifts, and not look at what each other bought so that it will also be a surprise for us while we help Bryce open his gifts.  I have learned from other parents, that kids this age like the gift wrapping and boxes more than some of the actual gifts.  As seen in this picture my sister just texted me tonight of my nephew.  “Playing with one of his presents…a cardboard box:”

One tradition I did continue when it comes to gifts, is using ribbon and bows.  Sure it takes longer, but it’s so pretty and fun.  And yes I have to cover my gifts up at night so our cat doesn’t eat the ribbon, but I’m so use to wrapping this way.  I actually thought to myself, “hmm maybe I shouldn’t use ribbon this year because of the cat,” and next thing I noticed, I wrapped 3 gifts in a row using ribbon.

What traditions do you continue even if they take some extra time or some extra money this time of year?