Coming from a large family, exchanging birthday and Christmas with every family member quickly got to be too expensive for most of us, so my sister proposed a gift exchange plan that we’re giving a try this year. She has put household names into a hat and drawn a match for each household. The gift giver has the option of buying a small gift for each person in that drawn household or buying one larger gift for the entire household to share and enjoy. she sent out an email this morning asking all of us to confirm our desire to participate in the gift exchange or we have the option of declaring amnesty and opting out. If we opt out then we won’t be receiving gifts from anyone in the family but we won’t have to buy any, either. But I decided we would participate so I confirmed with her and started thinking about ways to save money on the gifts.
It seems strange to be thinking about Christmas in August, but my sister wanted the different family members to have plenty of time to shop for bargains or possible craft or construct the gifts, so she will be drawing the names this weekend and letting us know our lot.
We have always enjoyed getting up early on Black Friday to start our Christmas shopping and we make a day of guerilla shopping. I’m sure you know that Black Friday is what they call the day after Thanksgiving. It’s big doings at all the malls and retail stores, as they viciously compete for your Christmas shopping money with special sales and secret specials on that day.
One thing I learned that will help us this year is the web site that lets us know what all the secret specials and black friday sales will be in advance of everyone else who has to wait for the Thanksgiving Day newspaper to find out. by finding out ahead of time we can plan our shopping day’s itinerary and give each family member their shopping mission before we head out of the door at 4:30 am on Black Friday. This site also sends out email alerts when sales are announced, so I’ve signed up and I’m gearing up for the world’s busiest shopping day already!
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