Thursday, December 3, 2009

Simplifying Christmas~Keeping Shopping Simple

The Simplifying Christmas Meme is hosted by Heather at Heart of a Mommy. If you would like to participate, or just read about how others are Simplifying Christmas, click here. Today's Topic is about Keeping Shopping Simple.

We don’t go to Black Friday Sales instead it is our tradition to stay in our nighties all day and watch movies on Sky Angel (No cable at our house) or we rent them from the library a couple days before. We eat leftovers all day so no one cooks.



















I watch for gifts at yard sales, thrift stores, dollar stores, and clearance sales all year. We mostly buy our stocking stuffers from the dollar stores. We sometimes buy electronics or jewelry from pawn shops. Mostly we shop at the Wal-Mart. I really don’t like shopping as a hobby so I usually can get it done in a day since my list is not very long. I usually make a couple things too with supplies that I have on hand. This year I am making mini felt stockings to attach to the packages with a candy cane in them.



















When the kids were little my husband and I would take them with us shopping. We would look at the toys and decide what we wanted. And then I would walk around in other areas of the store with the kids while my husband filled a cart and checked out. He would take the toys to the van and hide them in the back and then come tell us it was time to go. The kids were none the wiser. We have also put things in layaway for a few days until my husband could go back and get the stuff this worked well with big things like bikes. We also would buy many of their toys in like new condition at thrift stores and save them back for Christmas.

The last several years my husband and I have make a date out of it. We chose one or two Saturdays to go out and we leave early 8:00 and come back about midnight. We love it because we eat out and look at stores the kids don’t care about and get to shop alone. They are teenagers so this works well for us. They watch movies all day and we buy them junk food to eat like hot pockets & chicken nuggets. We give them money to order pizza for dinner and they walk the block to the pizza place to pick it up. Tip: We turn the internet off when we are not home (Always) since they all have computers of their own in the school room.

2 comments:

  1. That is just so wise and cute how you guys went shopping with your kids! I love it! :)

    And those felt stockings are such an adorable idea.

    I probably should start my shopping the year before, but by the time each Christmas ends, I am so pooped that I just want to forget about it. That's probably a sour attitude to have though.

    I would *love* to have those recipie files for the Easy Bake Oven. You can email me at heartofamommie (at) gmail . com

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  2. I love my Wife so much. This is one of my favorite things of the year that we do together. This year looks to be fun since we have most of the shopping done. More time to walk and talk hand in hand. See you there my love.

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