Christmas is in full swing

Last night after the kids headed off to bed, we got all our Christmas Presents, well the ones we have home so far out and organized. We even have them all wrapped so they can be in our New Closet that we built last week. They can be out of sight from the roaming eyes of the youngsters. We were pretty worried about things but after we got everything organized we think we are not in too bad of shape. We know exactly what we need to get and made a promise to each other that we will not alter or buy extra things from this list this year. This is the year we maintain the budgets and don't get too much stuff.

Head Start on Christmas Shopping

With summer winding down and the kids back to school shopping all done my thoughts are beginning to turn to getting ready for Christmas. With 4 little children at home it is a busy time for me and my husband. Christmas morning is always very hectic in our home with the excitement in the air and the early morning risers excited to see what Santa has brought them this year. With only a few more pays before Christmas it is important for me to be always on the hunt for a sale. We generally start shopping for Christmas on Boxing Day and we pick up a few things here and there throughout the year mostly for all our neices and nephews and other family members so we can have all that out of the way by this time of year so we can focus the last few months on our own family. This year there has been some requests for video games so we will be waiting for the black friday specials where we can get the scoop on all the Post Thanksgiving ads that will be out and purchase our items on-line with out having to stand in line at the stores early in the morning, we did this one year and it rained, hard and we were soaked waiting for the store to open up. Some of our favorite ads come from best buy ad which we can usually get some of the games my oldest is looking for. Another one of our favorites online shops is at Walmart Online trying to stretch our dollars around as much as possible we tend to do a lot of our shopping here. This year with the cost of heating up so much and the kids doing more sports than last year it is going to be even more important for me to search out the deals and still try to get them what they really want for Christmas, wish me luck.

***CHRISTMAS SHOPPING...

Here we are only a week into the new year and I have already bought 2 Christmas gifts for my little nieces ("ring around the Rosie dolls") I will still probably get them a pair of pyjamas to go with it but it's start. After all the last minute shopping for 2007 I said I would never put myself our our bank account in that situation again. 2 gifts down with many many more to go!

***MAKING A LIST....

Well you know how it goes....today I am making a list and checking it twice - no not to find out who's naughty or nice but to see what I have left to buy the kids for Christmas. Next week is a big week for us to get most of our shopping done and I can concentrate on getting the gifts wrapped. I am not usually this far behind, in fact my wrapping would usually be done by now....Blake (3) is our hard one to buy for this year, he doesn't show a whole lot of interest in one particular toy so what do we get him? One good thing about his age is that he will be happy with anything we get him :0)

***THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING HAS BEGUN

Today with my husband having the day off we took the morning to go shopping for the kids for Christmas. It was a pretty productive day and not only did we find some gifts we were looking for I got lots of great ideas for our next pay. My oldest son has been asking for a guitar and we had found a great deal on the guitar along with some needed accessories so he will be getting the guitar along with lessons from us and we will have to see what he will be asking Santa for this year. Another great unexpected gift for my 5 year old son is a cool pirate lamp for his pirate room, we were really excited at the price! Much much cheaper than we had expected and it will go great with his pirate chest CD player but as for my daughter we have no idea what to get her and she won't give us any ideas, looks like we will have to take a shopping night just the 2 of us. Although this doesn't seem like much we are cutting back this year because we buy for them all year round and we do have quite a bit of items on lay a way...We might be able to pull it off again this year and there is a little less stress of our backs...

***CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

I am usually almost done my Christmas shopping by now and when I stopped to think about last night, I am in serious trouble here. I don't have much bought up to now and I still have the rest of the family to think about also and with my husband only getting paid once a month ( I know, crazy isn't it) we only have October and Novembers pays left to do our shopping so major cutting back this year. I will be sure to start my shopping early new year this time...This is so not like me...what is happening here?!