Christmas Ideas for the Early Bird Smart Shopper

Christmas is only six months away! Awww…who needed to hear that? Well, if you’re like me at all, you did because the early bird gets the worm and the early shopper gets the deal.

1. A good place to start is always at the beginning. Cards. Christmas cards to be specific. Now is a good time to go over your Christmas card list and check it twice. Does it need editing? New addresses added or names changed because of a move, marriage or divorce? With the increase on postage, it will pay to keep an up to date list. Also, perhaps this would be a good year to start making your own Christmas cards or even Christmas postcards and that would help save a little extra money on stamps too.

2. Next would be a shopping list for Christmas baking and cooking. If your grocery list is made ahead of time it will give you an idea of when to look for sales and to keep an eye out for coupons to use. Planning and finding recipes to use this early in the Holiday game will give you a jump on planning, giving you more time to enjoy Christmas when it’s here.

3. Christmas decorating ideas are as near as your computer. Useful ideas, frugal ideas that are attractive. They say form follows function but I say if it’s pretty and it’s useful it’s sold.

4. Entertainment planning can be done on the computer too. A running journal of ideas can be added to whenever necessary relieving you of the stress of trying to remember it all from memory. Parties, invitations, times, dates, food, all of it can be typed in and you are all set.

5. Christmas gifts. Finally, the meat of the subject. Christmas gift giving is and always will be the most popular way to say Merry Christmas to someone. Family, friends, co-workers, bosses, will appreciate any effort made towards making their Christmas a merry one. An updated gift list could look something like this:
Name
Sizes
Favorite Colors
Favorite Teams
Favorite Foods
Favorite Authors
Favorite Movies
Least favorite teams, foods, authors, movies come in handy for gag gifts too!
…and knowing what to get will help you shop the sales that come up before the Christmas Holiday season arrives and will also help you enjoy the process more since there is no big hurry.