Reduce Your Stress and Shop for Christmas with this Three Tier Plan

Three Tier Christmas Shopping

Tier One

• Family member that lives in your house and close friends that you want to buy presents for but don’t feel obligated to.

Tier Two

• Family members that live outside of your home and friends that aren’t in your inner circle that you feel inclined for whatever reason to buy them a gift.

Tier Three

• This is going to be the area that contains all the predicted holiday parties and events you are usually invited to and must bring a gift.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

0:22
There’s just something about Christmas music that gets you in that spirit. And I love all of the things that come with the Christmas season. I love the family get togethers, and the festivities and all the traditions that we’ve created in our little family.

0:39
But over the years, as I’ve downsized the amount of stuff that I am capable of managing, well, in my home, Christmas has become, I don’t know how to say this, something that I don’t want to dread. But sometimes I do, because I think of all the presents, and I think of all the stuff that is accumulated during Christmas time. But I am determined that this year is going to be different. I don’t want to be stressed out. I don’t want to be bitter about all the presence I have to buy. I want to come into it with a good attitude. And I believe that that starts with me planning ahead and starting to think through the things that I have to get an order the presence that I have to buy or that I’m going to change that phrasing that I get to buy for people.

1:33
Let me just tell you that gift giving is not my first love language, I am a words of affirmation person, acts of service, physical touch, gifts are nowhere on my radar. So I already I’m coming to Christmas predisposed that I don’t like gift giving now I’m okay with gift giving, and I’m okay with receiving gifts. But it’s just not my top priority. It’s not my number one love language.

2:00
So I am setting myself up. So I am less stressed. I’m less bitter towards the season. And like I said, I’m doing that by laying out a plan for me to follow. So I’m not like I don’t feel blindsided by random Christmas parties that pop up where I feel obligated to get a white elephant gift. I want to foresee as much as I can, who I need to buy gifts for, which brings me to doing this podcast.

2:31
First of all for myself and then bringing this information also to you in case Christmas time is something that you struggle with as well. It’s not only the gifts and the gift giving and all of the the commercialism that comes with Christmas that gets me down. It’s also the winter season, and not having my family I don’t have my parents anymore. So all of that combined really creates a lot of sadness in me. And I don’t want my feelings towards Christmas, to rub off on my family. Like so like I said, it brings me to doing this podcast for myself and also for you.

3:13
Let me just say this is a no fluff Friday, plus a Freebie Friday. So hang on tight until the end, I’m going to provide you with my first Christmas gift to you which is a freebie and I’ll tell you what it is and just a little bit. Typically on no fluff Friday, I give you a straightforward do it right now to per task that can impact your motherhood, your marriage or your home maintenance. Today, we are going to be tackling a little bit of all of that by creating a Christmas shopping list. And this is not going to be your typical everyday list. I’m going to break it down and help you decide who exactly you need to buy for this Christmas season. Because when we don’t have a plan before we go shopping, we end up spending way more money than we intended to spend. We end up not giving the gifts that we actually planned for. We’re waiting to the last minute to get the gifts and all of that combined creates a lot of stress during the Christmas season.

4:20
Now I know what you may be thinking, Lisa, it’s not even November yet and you’re already having us think about Christmas and creating a Christmas shopping list. What about the other holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving? Friend, I totally understand. I love all of those holidays as well. But here’s the thing. November is a big shopping month people start buying Christmas presents they start their Black Friday shopping and you want to get ahead of the game. You want to start laying the foundation for your shopping for your holidays all ready by doing a little bit along going along and It’s always great to start with a plan in mind, so you know where you want to end up, you don’t want to miss anything, you don’t want to be blindsided.

5:09
This list and this plan for shopping is also going to help you get on the same page with your spouse, Jered and I have very different preferences. When it comes to Christmas, we were both brought up basically the same way and have the same traditions when it came to Christmas. Our parents gave us lots of presents, there were present stacked around the Christmas tree, it was very exciting. We both did Santa Claus so there were toys set out for us around the Christmas tree. But over the years, as I’ve gone through different life experiences, I’ve really backed down from wanting to do tons and tons of gift giving and present. And I also see that my kids really don’t play with toys. They they really don’t they, they get toys. And maybe like a couple of hours later, they’re like, “Okay, we’re done. Now what?” and I just hate seeing that consumerism in my kids. I want to teach them different. I want to teach them to know what the true meaning of Christmas is.

6:14
For us that that true meaning is the birth of Christ and spending the time remembering the story, his story and spending time with family and all the festivities. And to be honest for my kids, that is their favorite part about Christmas. They’ve learned that it’s not all about gift giving, it’s not all about presents. And they really don’t feel satisfied after they’ve opened up all of their presents. So Jered, and I, we still have these we have these differences when it comes to Christmas and gift giving, but we’ve learned how to negotiate. We’ve learned how to meet in the middle. This plan is going to help us stay on the same page. And for us not to spend more than we both agreed on and to bring him in on the gift giving because that is his love language that is one of his love language is gift giving one Christmas.

7:12
One Christmas, I bought all the presents for the kids because I was being thrifty, and I bought them online, or I bought them at thrift stores. And I wrapped it all up. And he had no clue what we were giving our kids for Christmas. And he hated it because that I took away the joy of gift giving from him and I vowed I learned I learned a lesson the hard way to never do that again. So I want him to be in on this.

7:39
I actually texted him today while he was at work. And I said, “Okay, we need to make a date to start planning for the kids Christmas presents. We need to decide what we want to give them. We need to go ahead and start searching online together.” And so that’s what we are starting to do every year now is go on a date or have time where we’re looking on our phones together on Amazon. I try not to buy on Amazon, and I try to buy local when I can. I definitely want to bring him in on this experience because it’s more for him than it is for me. The gift giving is way more for him than it is for me. So I want to meet that love language and meet that need in my husband. For me. It’s more about the traditions that we have the Christmas tree and going and looking at lights and all the different things. Now I do love gift giving, but it’s definitely not top priority.

8:38
Let me just share with you one more funny story before I dive into teaching you how to create this amazing plan for Christmas. One year, I convinced my family, mainly my husband because my children were still little at the time, I convinced him to take a break from celebrating Christmas. I know if you have traditions and then you don’t do them. It you feel lost. And we did a lot loss at that year. But my reason for doing it was to prove to myself that I didn’t have to do something because somebody else told me that I had to do it. And I didn’t have to be sucked into the commercialism and the consumerism that usually takes place during this holiday season. It I won’t say that it was a flop but it was definitely a learning experience.

9:35
Traditions are very important to people. And when you take that, that tradition, and that celebration that time of celebration away from them. They almost feel like they’ve lost a little bit of their identity and Christmas celebrations are so deeply rooted in our identity jarred and my identities because of the way we were raised and how we’re raising our own children, those traditions, and those celebrations will be deeply rooted in them as well. So that’s why I think it’s really important to decide and be on the same page with your spouse, how you are going to handle Christmas, and how you’re going to celebrate and what you’re going to participate in. Because you are laying the the important foundation for your children as adults, we refer to our childhood, so much as adults, we, we refer to it in conversation, we are always thinking about how we were raised and the traditions we had and the celebrations that we had and things that we do with our parents and our friends. It’s so important, this time with our children is so important. And we get to decide as parents, how they celebrate how they remember their childhood during these this season.

10:57
So I think it’s really important to have a plan in place, and to know what you want to instill in your kids. What do you want them to feel nostalgic about? Where are you going to put your emphasis during this holiday season? Jered is on the same page with me now, and he loves all the celebrations, The gifts are just really just a small part of that, but he does love to shower our kids with gifts.

11:28
You have to decide how you are going to go into the season. And I really feel like it’s super important to have a plan in place so it doesn’t catch you off guard. And it doesn’t start snowballing and you feel stressed and you’re fighting with each other. So I’m going to give you a framework today. And I love this framework that I created for myself, and I’m going to share it with you.

11:54
So here’s what you’re going to do. Grab a piece of paper, I’m going to walk you through this. You are going to write Tier One at the top of the page. You’re going to break your community, the people that are in your life, into three different tiers. I don’t want to call them levels because I don’t feel like we need a level our friendship. But as far as how close somebody is to you the relationship that you have with somebody, you’re going to put them in different tiers. So tier one. And you’re going to have to, let’s say, subgroups underneath that tier. Okay, so tier one, you’re going to have two subgroups. And under tier one, you’re going these are going to be all the people that are your immediate family, they are the closest to you. And underneath those subgroups, you’re going to have one group is going to be your family group. And the other subgroup is going to be your friends group.

12:56
The people in tier one are the people that you desire to give gifts to you, you don’t have to give gifts to them out of obligation, or out of duty, you want to shower them with gifts, these are the people that are closest to you. And you just love them so much and you you like them. So underneath family, for us, we have three kids, and we give them three gifts for Christmas. I’m going to list under my family, and my family is going to be the only people the ones that live in my house, they are going to be the only people that are under my family sub group. I’m going to list my husband and my three children, they are the only people that are in my tier one family group, and under eat underneath each of those, I’m going to give through I’m going to list three gifts, I’m going to give three lines, and I’m gonna list three gifts for each of them that I want to give them.

13:57
I’m also going to list how much of a budget that I am allowing for that gift or for that person. Now if you say okay, I want to spend $100 per person, for the immediate people in my family in my home, then you will put that at the top and you will say okay, I’m going to give $100 per person, I have four people in my immediate family. So that’s gonna be $400 for that subgroup, then in your friends subgroup, I personally would only give one gift per friend. You can decide if you want to give more than one gift, but you’re going to list the names of your friends in that tier one subgroup and then you’re going to put out beside them the budget that you are going to allow or plan for the gift that you’re going to give them typically this is like a $20.00 I don’t know what I don’t know how close you are with your friends and what kind of gift giver you are. I’m not much of a gift giver. But some people they love to give gifts that’s their love language. So you’re going to put up beside them how much you are planning to spend for their gift.

15:05
Now we’re going to go to tier two. Now this is going to be your second level of friendships and relationships. You’re gonna have two subgroups and underneath those groups you’re going to have a family subgroup, and typically, this is going to be your next level of family, so your husband’s relatives and your relatives, like your brothers and your sisters and your mom and your dad. So anyone that doesn’t live in your home that you are going to give a gift to. This is going to be your family subgroup. And again, one present should be sufficient. Now, you’re also going to do a friend’s sub group, and you’re going to list out your friends, you’re going to put beside them how much you are budgeting for those gifts. For me, I don’t have a lot of friends in that that subgroup that I’m going to give presents to. I’ve just kind of had conversations with my friends, and they’re like, “Hey, we’re gonna agree with each other that you don’t give me a gift. I don’t give you a gift. We’re good.” So that’s the kind of conversations that you might want to have with your friends just so you let each other off the hook.

16:25
Now if y’all love giving gifts and do it, if you love doing like secret sisters, then do it. Also you can give you don’t have to give physical gifts, you can give services, you can give activities, I love giving activities as gifts, like taking my kids to the trampoline park, or taking them to the skating rink or giving them movie gift cards or I don’t know just I love giving them activities instead of giving them tangible gifts. Now for the tier two subgroup under family, for Jered’s family, we do give his parents a gift. And we do for his brothers and sisters as well. There are five siblings total including him and they all have spouses. So we’ve all agreed, instead of buying each other gifts, that we will just do a Crazy Santa’s Present Exchange, and we all bring a gift that we personally love. And if we want to take it home, we can take it home. So we bring a gift that we would like. And that really helps to cut down on the amount of gift giving and spending and what we’re bringing home and having to manage. So maybe talk about that with your family. And maybe y’all can come to an agreement like that as well.

17:53
Okay, so that was tier two. Tier one is going to be your the people that live in your home. And any really, really close friends that you want to give gifts to now you don’t have to give gifts to but these are people that you want to tier two is going to be another subgroup of your family that lives outside of your home that you need to give presents to and then a subgroup of your friends that you kind of feel obligated to give them gifts, maybe, I don’t know, maybe you’d like to give them gifts as well, then we’re gonna go to tier three and tier three is going to be those random parties that you are invited to, that you didn’t plan for, we’re gonna go ahead and plan for those. So underneath tier three are going to be more of those obligation presents that you’re going to have to buy. So I have five things listed. I have family party, friend, party, work party, church party, and any miscellaneous party. And for those gifts I I like to budget, maybe like 20 to $25. So total, if I go to five different parties, if you are a social bug and you go to five different parties, that’s $125. Now if you spread that out over two months from here until Christmas, that’s not too bad. You can buy a gift a week and it doesn’t sneak up on you and make you go into debt. That’s why it’s really good to go ahead and think through these things and plan them out and kind of foresee what’s going to happen in your Christmas season.

19:29
Okay, let’s recap what those three tiers are for Christmas shopping. Tier one is going to be your immediate family who lives in your house and any friends that you want to buy presents for. Tier Two is going to be your next level of family. So anyone any family that doesn’t live in your house that you need to buy a gift for and then friends that you feel obligated. I personally don’t feel obligated to buy friends gifts or people that aren’t very close to me, I just want to buy things for people if I desire to buy things for them. So that’s going to be your tear to people. I put that on there because I know there are going to be some of y’all out there that still feel obligated to buy people presents, I get it. You’re you’re on a journey, you’re on a path. Eventually, hopefully, you’ll get there where you don’t feel any obligation to buy anybody presents that you don’t want to buy. tier three is going to be those random parties that are unforeseen. And we go over those really quickly. family parties, friend parties, work parties, church parties, and any miscellaneous parties.

20:37
Now, do you remember what I said at the beginning of this podcast, that it was also a Freebie Friday, and I’m not much of a gift giver. But giving away things that can better your life and help you get more organized, and to create less stress in your life is definitely a gift that I loved to give. And I feel like I get to give that kind of gift each week to y’all as I create these podcast episodes for you. So I hope you’re tuning in and you’re receiving the gifts, that the kinds of gifts that I like to give you. But for today’s gift, I’m going to give you a Christmas shopping list print out so you don’t have to write out everything in a notebook. I have this completely typed up for you. It’s almost like a worksheet for you to work through and to really help you get in budget to get a plan. Sit down with your husband sit down with your spouse and really work through this, this plan and you could actually enjoy this holiday season without stress without overwhelm and without rushing around at the last minute. So to grab that worksheet to grab that print out you need to go to habitsandhome.com/017 or you can look in the shownotes on the Apple Podcast to be able to access that once you print it out I want you to put it on a clip board and i want you to put it on a nail on the way inside your pantry. I like to keep clipboards in my pantry on my wall. It’s super easy to find them I’m not hunting down a piece of paper to write on I really like to keep clipboards pinned up in my wall on my wall in my pantry it’s a great place to put them.

22:27
Alright friends, if you enjoyed this a Christmas themed episode you are definitely going to want to tune in on Monday. I am sharing with you gift giving rules, and these rules are going to help you feel freer when it comes to gift giving and gift receiving. It’s gonna give you permission to let things go that you feel obligated to hold on to. So make sure you tune in on Monday, and until then I am Lisa at The Habits and Home Show.