Hawaii Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
what's your Christmas shopping style?
I know it's only September, but I'm already starting to think about Christmas shopping.
Living so far away from my family makes it tricky - I have to find something online that I think they'll like (which can take months for some people!) plus get it shipped so it will arrive on time, so I tend to start looking around Sept/Oct, even though I often don't actually find something until Nov or so.
[Poll]
Re: what's your Christmas shopping style?
We don't really Christmas shop. Even when we were dating, we decided to spend our money on "experiences" rather than stuff. So a night in a B&B, a spa day, a fancy dinner, etc. is usually what we do rather than buying a bunch of stuff, wrapping it and placing it under the tree. We do small things in stockings...like lip balm, socks, etc.
In the family we draw names at Thanksgiving and then I'll shop online for it, usually at Amazon.com.
Now that kiddies are coming into the picture we plan to only do three gifts....two small ones and one big one. I cannot stand it when kids get SO many presents on Christmas that they don't know what to do with themselves! It's a shame. Plus, this LO will have a bday 4-6 weeks after Christmas, so we can always hold off on the BIG presents (like a bike, doll house, etc.) until then.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
I don't buy Christmas gifts for adults any more (except for MH), only my nieces and a few donations. I'll probably start sometime in late October/early November.
For me, the Christmas season in general starts very early. Since I teach music, my chorus has already started working on a little "Deck the Halls" for the December concert....gotta start early when your're talking about getting 9- and 10-year-olds on stage! Since I'm already in the mood, I usually start shopping pretty early.
Our family is CRAZY when it comes to giving Christmas gifts. My grandmother and even my parents still love to shower us with TONS of gifts like we are still 10 years old. I have 3 siblings, me being the oldest at 40 and the youngest is 24. We're ALL married and everything although I'm the only one who's had a grandchild until this year.
SO, there's lots of pressure for us siblings to give lots of gifts in return to our parents and grandmother. SInce they all moved away, some come back for Christmas, some don't, guess who's responsibility it is to purchase and then wrap all those gifts? ME!!!!!! It's getting out of hand and we've tried to control it but they can't be controlled!
I began shopping about a month ago and started making my list immediately last year after Christmas. I've had several things for my daughter delivered to the house this month as I try to do as much shopping as I can on ebay while at work!
We do Christmas in Hawaii w/DH's family. It's like pulling teeth sometimes to get the ball rolling but everyone (DH's two brothers and their families plus his dad) does a list and emails it to everyone else. We do a family gift and the kids get individual gifts.
I charge EVERYTHING to my American Express card during the year and then use the points to get gift cards for xmas gifts. I even link my work AMEX to my private account so I get those points too. I end up w/hundreds of dollars of gift cards so we don't really need to spend too much on holiday gifts.
DH & I also don't really do gifts, we're like Lori and rather plan experiences together. I'm not sure what we'll do w/DS...this year we're doing three Christmases for him, one w/my family around Thanksgiving (they live in the Chicago area), one at home before we fly to Hawaii and the one w/DH's family in Hawaii. Maybe we'll give him a present or two at each.
Normally I try to have it done in November.
This year we drew names, so each of us is buying for one person in my family. I'm not sure what Russ and I are going to do? We're going to have the best gift of all this year! So we might just save our money for a longer summer vacation. Like Lori we prefer experiences to presents.
I kind of cancelled Christmas this year (it was my year to host). I'm not going to worry about decorating or putting alot of pressure on myself. So my mom is going to either bring Christmas dinner to our house, or we're going to go to her house (an hour away) depending on what life with baby P is like?
Married Bio
I didn't know you're a music teacher! COOL!
I agree, Christmas always started in late September/early October in my studio because everyone needed to get working on their holiday music. Christmas carols always get me in the holiday spirit.
For us, Christmas is more about decorating the tree and making hot apple cider than giving into the shopping frenzy!
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
I have to say, Christmas has become one of the most stressful times for me since being a kid! It has become too much about gift giving, etc. I think that it takes away from the true nature of the holiday!
Given that, our family has started to draw names now that its growing. So, during thanksgiving, we will go to MH's house and each person will draw two names. And then, we'll go to my parent's house and draw two names. In the end, we buy 4 gifts each, under $50.
My parents say that once there are more grandkids in the family, we'll have to cut the adults out hehe. Which is totally fine with me!
Ever since we got married, we have used our xmas gifts to each other as sometime we can buy for the home, a trip, etc.