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This was my mother. She would spend all year picking up Christmas gifts a little bit here and a little bit there. Then she wasn’t run ragged during December because she had already done her shopping.
I finish my Christmas shopping around July. Then I sit back with a smirk and watch everyone around me in a store during December go crazy about buying “deals” that cost me $15 or $20 less over 4 months earlier!
Exactly. The store where I work at usually has huge toy clearance events around July. I’ve seen people with multiple carts loaded to the brim with toys get out for only a couple hundred dollars
our goal is to be done by halloween. rarely happens, but it’s a good start!
Her husband speaks the truth. Who’s to say the items someone desires will be the same eight months off? Who’s to say someone won’t get the thing they want for their birthday or on their own? In my mind, early or mid November is the right time to shop. Fewer crowds (sans Black Thursday/Friday) and more items on the shelves, and you won’t be worrying if they’ll still like it when the time comes.
Early november is a great time. If you buy it too early there is a greater chance of it going clearance/discontinued. I had way to many people bring in items after x-mas for a diffrent size to see the last time we sold it was months ago(oldest item this year was fron 2007). Worst was if it went clearance an they would only get $4. from the original $40.
I wish this wasn’t true, but I was cashiering JUST two days ago and a lady dropped a Lego set and a bunch of little stuff on the belt and said “Yup, this should finish my Christmas shopping for my eldest grandson, just two more grandkids to go! I laughed, said “Christmas! That’s a good one!”… but she was serious.
I don’t mind them so much. They are likely to get all their xmas shopping done before Veterans’ Day, and you don’t see them again till after the holidays. One less person in the hordes of shoppers. Just as long as they don’t expect xmas colored giftwrap in March. LOL
i’ve met several of those ladies when i worked at Sears. They buy the Christmas wrap on clearance the week after Christmas and save it til the next year…
I can’t cast stones, I do that with cards as well. As most of gifts are baskets of home-canned (mostly home-grown) garden goodies, we technically shop throughout the summer.
I tend to do this too. Sure, I know a lot of the options will be gone, but there’s still generally some good stuff around during that clearance week. I stock up on gift wrap, gift bows, gift tags, greeting cards, etc. then. Not gifts themselves, but the trappings to present them.
I’ll admit that I do this a little. Last year I bought my SIL’s gift when it was $5 in August. About a week ago I thought about buying something on ebay for a friend, but decided not to because it was February and I don’t want to risk that he’ll buy it in the meantime. Which is the main reason I don’t like to buy stuff super early.
I do like to buy Christmas wrap on clearance. Especially things that aren’t too Christmasy. I can use those all year.
The worst thing is that I used to be a xmasi aeternalis, until I got married and started in retail
Now, I dot have the money or time to be able to do constant shopping for Christmas.
I wish I could do this, but I’d hide the stuff and then forget where I put it.
I’d probably do that too!
It would probably be better to try it that way and spread the purchases over the year instead of trying to come up with the money all at once. Problem is though, getting out of people what they want in those last 8 weeks can be like pulling teeth, let alone 8 months out!
I usually hit the stores a few days after Christmas to buy, as others pointed out, wrapping paper, Christmas cards a new pair of scissors and such; but I also buy a new artificial tree if needed and house and yard decorations. My Nativity scene has grown from a manger and the Holy Family to what I think Bethlehem may have looked like. Not everything’s scaled the same, but it’s on a shelf and I put the big stuff up front and the smaller in the back to give sense of greater depth. I’m starting a Christmas village too.
The problem with this approach is that if, in March, a person really wants something, then he/she will probably get it long before Christmas. Or will lose interest in it by December. Or any of several other things.
I find it highly unlikely that most people who really want something are still going to be wanting it ten months later.
In order to avoid that, you’d probably have to give practical gifts … like clothing.
Um, nothing wrong with that, of course … but, personally, I always enjoyed giving a friend or family member a gift that he/she was REALLY wanting, and seeing the happiness on their faces as they open it.
This is especially true for children.
But that’s not really something you can do in advance. You’d have to wait until at least November for it to work.