15 thoughts on “Question of the Day – Christmas Shopping”

  1. The shopping was nearly all Amazon. The biggest gift we are giving is a Roomba for my parents, but the rest of the items are mostly small and inexpensive: a couple calendars with Texas landmarks, some Texas guidebooks, “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” etc. Our extended family is large, so we have to pace ourselves. Plus, our kids don’t need that many new toys these days. Scratch that–they don’t need any new toys, except maybe something educational now and then. I’ve gone to paying our oldest a dollar for certain chores, and it’s been very revealing (as well as economical) to see what she chooses for herself with her own money. Who knew that she would be so thrilled over the purchase of a 75 cent set of glow in the dark dinosaur decals? For Christmas, she’s getting one set of Peter Pan action figures from us, plus an illustrated version of the book (she loved the Disney movie). Our youngest is getting Meet the Robinsons and a Serendipity book called “The Muffin Dragon” since he loves both muffins and pretending to be a dragon.
    We have a monthly charity budget, and I haven’t figured out what to do with it for December. Probably something to our parish, something to Caritas, and maybe something to Catholic Relief. There are a lot of poor people in town, and living in a smaller, poorer city than DC means that we have contact with a much more varied circle than we used to.

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  2. We bought a house. Does that count as super-patriotic given the housing crisis? I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet. I think all the relatives are getting baby-picture-related items this year.
    Like Amy, I do charitable giving month-by-month. I try to focus on something local in December, but I haven’t gotten any further on that than the Christmas presents so far this year.

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  3. I had fun shopping this year. I went out at 6 am on Black Friday to Toys R Us, which wasn’t as horrible as you might think. A friend and I went shopping in a small town with lots of boutiquey places when she was in town Thanksgiving weekend, and then a week ago I spent a bit of money at a “holiday vendor night” at our school. IOW, I’m trying to spend on local businesses.
    Our department has a relationship with a local elementary school, and there are periodic drives for food or other things. I always shop for that, plus having been to the local homeless shelter this year for a community service project, I also wanted to pick up stuff for them. We also did Toys for Tots (they were having a drive at my FIL’s assisted living center).
    I’m pretty much done with shopping. Hooray!

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  4. Oh I do the patriotic thing and buy lots and lots of junk throughout the entire year. But, I did finally order the Roomba (yesterday). I think it’s kind of a present for my husband (and I’m getting it based on Amy’s recs of it — nice to see that you like it enough to think that everyone should have one :-).
    We do a fair bit of charitable giving. But, I do worry when the giving just seems like more shopping (and thus, the benefit to the shops, though I guess, we’re now classifying that as patriotic?). We were in the mall a couple of weekends ago (normally avoided like the plague), and there was a booth asking for a list of stuff (games, nailpolish, bath supplies) for the local Children’s hospital “life center.” It’s a good cause, and the kids had fun shopping for Children’s, instead of themselves (which I wasn’t allowing). But, wouldn’t it really be better if I gave the money to Children’s, and let them buy the stuff themselves?
    I just can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing when one shops for charity. I mean, it’s better than shopping for oneself, but is shopping ever really charitable?

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  5. My children’s school did a toy drive; my office did a coat drive; at church they did a grocery store gift card drive. In the end it was a little too focused on shopping in my opinion.
    I find it interesting that people do their charitable giving on a monthly budget. I do annual budgets for charity. While some of the payments (notably offering to church) are auto-deducted monthly, the others are very much planned ahead as part of annual fundraising drives at school, for NPR, Oxfam, etc.
    Do people give to a different charity each month? I guess I always thought charities were able to, er, accomplish more when they got money in larger chunks, or at least more predictable chunks. Am I living in a dream world?

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  6. My experience is that it’s really easy to do Christmas shopping when the people you’re shoppping for don’t have a lot of stuff, don’t have lots of money, or aren’t big plugged-in internet freaks like me. A number of years back I got my parents a microwave, and my mom still thanks me for it at least once a year. What on earth would I have gotten them if they already had a microwave? I did, however, once send my parents German language movies two years running (Mostly Martha and Goodbye, Lenin). In my defense, my mom was a German major back when. The problem with prosperous, plugged-in relatives is that if they want something, they probably already have it, and one is reduced to sending sweets. The Grinch in me would like to abolish Christmas gift-giving for grownups. I for one don’t need any more sweaters.
    Speaking of the Roomba, I’m waiting impatiently for cheap lawnmowing and leaf removal robots. I know there are already really expensive lawnmowing robots, but the price needs to come down a lot for it to be feasible. It seems like robots will probably conquer yardwork before they make much of a dent on housecleaning. Indoor housework is so finicky, with so much tidying, reorganizing, dusting, etc.

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  7. I just came back from Pearl Paint and Campmor. Very successful in both places. Pearl Paint is a fantastic art store. I think there are only brick and mortar building around here, but they have a smaller online system. I always give my kids art supplies. I also picked up some stuff my nieces: the cutest little watercolor sets, an origami kit, a tiny Strathmore pad, a pencil shaper that clips onto a backpack. And they give 10% off for teachers. Here’s a cute art set on their online store.
    I’m also a big fan of Campmor. Great affordable fleece for men. The women’s fleece are in bad colors. Avoid. Got this for Poppop.

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  8. “Do people give to a different charity each month? I guess I always thought charities were able to, er, accomplish more when they got money in larger chunks, or at least more predictable chunks. Am I living in a dream world?”
    I’m sure you’re right in principle. On the other hand, there’s a long list of groups I’d like to help: my kid’s school, my parish, Caritas, Catholic Relief, a mission in the Russian Far East, the Oratory in Pittsburgh where I met my husband, Georgetown University Hospital ICU (they forgave $10K to an indigent friend after saving her life). Plus there’s personal giving like when your friend’s friend house burns down, a relative is deployed overseas, or a friend from abroad needs a place to stay while getting medical treatment. I keep a list and we give routinely to some entities (our parish), while rotating between the others. It would be a good idea to be more systematic. I’m not very spontaneous about giving these days, having learned the hard way that a one-off check for $40 eventually all comes back to you in the form of fundraising envelopes.

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  9. Amen to that, Amy — I find it incredibly frustrating to see so much non-profit fundraising mail arrive. The waste irks on many different levels.
    I’ve done greendimes for so much of my junk mail (especially catalogs), but I still can’t get the Chicago Food Depository to back off.
    I am pretty happy with my current annual system for charity. First off, it really helps me move consciously towards my after-tax tithing goal. (I count all non-profit donations towards “tithing”.) It also helps me spread it around — I try to devote no more than 20% to cultural institutions. I’m a sucker for the arts-related fundraising approaches for children’s museums, PBS, the historical society, etc. When in reality the group who needs my money most is the totally low-rent (literally!) homeless shelter in the Presbyterian church about a mile away.

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  10. OMG, buying for one of my friends is near impossible. She is so generous and so enjoys shopping for gifts. If you go out with her anywhere, she never leaves without gifts for all sorts of friends. She’s always picking up animal-related stuff for my kids (which they love). And I always feel like a failure at whatever I give her. This year I hit the jackpot at a craft fair, finding something that I know she wouldn’t have but would love because of the design.
    I don’t have a regular budget for charity giving, but nowadays pretty much everyone knows I’m a sucker for cancer-related charities, having lost my MIL and grandmother a year ago to cancer, and having a father with advanced cancer now. If you’re walking, biking, boating or even skateboarding for the cure, I’m there for you.

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  12. What to get for the person who has everything?
    (Relative A and B are talking about unloved in-law C who is a hoarder, with a stash including several used vacuum cleaners that he swiped from a charity drop-off.)
    Relative B: Maybe we can just get him a dumpster?

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  14. It looks like I’m going to have to expand that rather Puritanical list I posted earlier. This morning I went in to pull out Baby D. (age 2.75) from his crib. Immediately, completely out of the blue, he started saying “I wanna elephant suit,” and detailing the charms of the suit: hooves, tail, trunk, etc. “It will be fun to have a grey elephant suit.” This isn’t completely out of the blue, since his best pal is a yellow stuffed elephant, but we haven’t looked at a costume catalogue since way before Halloween.
    I think we’ll order one (maybe for Three Kings/Epiphany), but that leaves the question of what to get for big sister. We missed St. Nicholas’s this year, but I hope to start doing it routinely. I like the idea of breaking up the big Christmas toy orgy into smaller, more manageable pieces.

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  15. mobile phone with free gift

    Did you know you can get a valuable free gift with your next contract moble phone… such as Wii, HDTV,top spec Laptops, Playstation, Tom Tom and much more? And its all from a name you can trust… Tesco! YOu’d be nuts to go direct to network with this…

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