This is why I stay out of stores around this time of year. if I need a gift for someone, it's ordered online or that person gets a gift card.
In my family we do not exchange Christmas gifts between adults, excepting for spouses buying gifts for their spouse and even that is usually not a whole lot, not extravagant.
I am divorced and have no children or grandchildren but I have a bunch of great nieces (6 great nieces who are still kids - 1 age 10, 4 age 9 including triplets and one age 7) and one great nephew who is now 20 and working a full time job in IT but still living at home and an older great niece who is now 22 and in grad school working on her PhD.
As the older ones are now adults, I only have to buy for the 6 younger ones, although I still might get the older ones a gift card.
Years ago I started doing all my Christmas shopping on line.
The 6 younger great nieces, being so close in age and 4 and 2 of them being sisters and all the “cousins” very close in age and to each other, and girls can be very competitive with each other, especially siblings, I try to even things out as best as I can. For instance, three years ago I bought outfits and boots, not Uggs, but just as nice and cool and at a better price, and necklaces for all the young great nieces. The outfits and boots were all a bit different and I needed 4 different sizes and I tried to find something in their favorite color, but similar enough, the same brand and style so that one kid didn’t feel short changed over another.
And the charm necklaces were all pretty much the same except for each being a different animal, tried to get their favorite or what matched their personality; kitty, puppy, dolphin, horse, butterfly, and an iguana for Lily.
Thanks mostly to Amazon, I was able to do all my shopping in just a few hours without leaving the house, hassling with parking, the crowds, surly store clerks (if you can even find one when you need help), rude shoppers, and going from store to store to store to store, and not finding what I wanted to buy or finding all the sizes. I found some very good deals and with my Prime account, free two-day shipping on most items!
The older two got Amazon gift cards - my great nephew used his along with other Amazon gift cards he got to purchase a new lap top and the older great niece used hers to purchase books for school when she was working on her BA.
Another year I got all the younger girls books, the now 10-year-old being big into US history and Disney watches, each with the girls’ favorite Disney Princess, and each one has a different favorite Princess and one who loves Alice from Alice In Wonderland which is very hard to find, but again, researching on line going to a couple of sites aside from Amazon, the Disney Store on-line and Target on line, but still…click, click, click and done.
I also like that I can copy a link to what I see on-line on what I am thinking of buying for the kids and sending the link to the parents for their input.
One year I thought it would be cool to buy the girls either an ant farm or a butterfly farm. Ummm – their parents squashed that idea.
