Looking for ways to avoid going OTT with Christmas gifts?
When Christmas time comes around and you are really feeling in the festive spirit, it can be very easy to lose yourself in the joy of gift buying. Of course, you want the ones that you love to be filled with happiness on the big day, but it is important not to achieve this by stretching yourself too thin and spending more than you have on various gifts and presents.
When the Christmas music is blaring in the stores and the festive cheer is surrounding you, it can be really easy to fall into a frenzy of crazy Christmas gift buying and giving, but it’s not always a sensible option. Here are some ways to avoid going OTT with Christmas gifts.
One of the simplest ways to avoid going OTT with Christmas gifts is to buy one large gift. We all like to have a big gift to open on Christmas morning, but you don’t have to have multiple main presents; just a single main gift supplemented with fun stocking fillers is more than enough. Don’t be tempted to buy lots of big presents, advertising can be very persuasive, but remember, quality over quantity!
This is a fun rule to follow that can be really helpful when trying to keep your gift-giving to a suitable level. Get them something they want, something they need, something to play with and something to read. These four areas cover a wide and exciting range of gifts, and nobody could possibly feel shortchanged by receiving four well thought out gifts that appeal to different parts of their personality.
Rather than buying twenty things that you have to wrap and that turn out to be mostly short-term and unmemorable, why not buy an experience for somebody? Whether this is something like a bungee jump or a day out at a real racing track, it is a much more worthwhile type of present to give someone, because it can create many more long-lasting memories than the usual material gifts.
If you are trying to buy light for your own child, rather than limiting their access to new toys, make a deal with them that for every new toy they receive, they have to give an old one to charity. You might find that they are unwilling to let go of some of their older ones, and therefore you are at a liberty to buy a few less this Christmas!