December 19 Prompt:Christmas Shopping -
How did your family handle Christmas shopping? Did anyone finish early or did anyone start on Christmas Eve?
Christmas shopping. Ugh.
Obviously not my favorite thing. I'm not real big on gifts - receiving or giving them. I don't start shopping on Christmas Eve, but neither do I finish shopping early either.
My family of origin handles Christmas shopping via lists. Somewhere around the time the youngest outgrew Santa, we all started making lists of what we wanted. The lists would be circulated among the other family members and we'd indicate what we planned to buy. If your list was planned carefully (nothing too outrageous, stuff everyone could afford), you would get everything on it.
My family still does this today, although I only participate for Mom and Dad. Mom makes this particularly easy. My parents live in a smaller town and Mom does a lot of catalog shopping. She makes a list (at the top of this post), noting item numbers, price, where you can get it, the website and phone number. She also cuts out pictures and descriptions of the items from the catalogs. Dad assembles those onto additional sheets of paper (like below) and repeats the info about where you can get the items. He then e-mails the list and pictures to me and my siblings around Thanksgiving, and we e-mail each other saying what we're going to get her.
Since I now live in a small town and also do a lot of catalog and online shopping, I find Mom easy to buy for. Dad is not quite as detailed, but there is usually at least one thing on his list that I can easily get for him. I don't make any lists for myself because I really don't want or need anything.
In 2011, we're spending Christmas with Mark's daughter and her husband and their seven children (yours, mine, ours). I'm pretty much done with my shopping for them; just need a few more little things for the girls.
(This is post #19 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. Originally published December 19, 2009; slight revisions were made this year.)
© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.
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