Aleta's Crazy Christmas List Process

I promised a friend that I would do a blog post on this….so here goes.

Okay, now y’all know I have my quirks. In general, I am NOT an organized person. But I think that I may have reached record neurotic status when it came to my Christmas list this year. In all fairness to me, my memory is absolute shit, so honestly, my process helped TREMENDOUSLY.

I started my Christmas shopping back in July. While that may seem a bit extreme in itself, I have never been one who loves to shop at the last minute. I like to have plenty of time to put a lot of thought into my gifts. I also really sought to primarily buy local and/or buy from small businesses.

I listed everyone that was on my Christmas Shopping List on an excel spreadsheet. As ideas for each person popped into my head, I would add it under their name. Even back in July, there were a few gifts that I knew that I would be purchasing—some definite big gifts for my immediate family. Every item was in red type. As the lists for each person began to form and become more set in stone, I started a list off to the side that was dated with each pay period. I would add items under each date so that no pay period was hit super heavy. I also put items that would take longer (like handmade items) on earlier pay periods and items that I could just run and pick up last minute (like gift cards) towards the later pay periods. This helped out so much in determining my “plan of action” and my efforts not to over-spend any given pay period.

I will say, because I continued to add some items (ex: I had no idea what to buy my Brother-In-Law until mid-November), the later pay periods were still hit pretty hard…so my plan isn’t without flaws. Hopefully, next year, I’ll have a better idea of what to get EVERYONE on my list early on, so I won’t run into this issue.

Now, back to the people on my list. As I mentioned, every item under their name was written in red (you could choose any color really). As I began to purchase the items, I would change the type to a different color. You could strike-through, change font color, etc. Whatever would trigger your memory and let you know that an item had been purchased.

At home, because a failing memory also allows for me to lose items once I’d purchased them. I stored all the presents in one location. I took pieces of masking tape and marked who the items were for.

Not sure if this will help anyone, but truthfully, it has helped me so much. I did a mock list for you to see!