Todd (Zippy) and I were talking on another thread about Christmas shopping, and I had some things about it I wanted to say, and ask.....
How many people shop online? Do you also go out and shop in a store?
We did both this year. We buy more and more online every year, and personally, I like it better. Better prices, and most of the time free shipping. Can't beat that! But we did go out today and shop. We had to travel 45/50 miles to go to any stores, and not even good ones. We are very rural, and have to drive 2 hours to get to a Target, or anything other than Wal-Mart. Really sucks, so we just would rather not. We did have a good day, and the people were nice. Didn't see anyone fighting, (or hear them) and we heard a lot of "Merry Christmas" from people. That's not the norm anymore, so I was happy.
The one thing I wanted to say is, as we are buying for 5 kids, it's disappointing to see all the stuff piled up and know how much it cost. Doesn't seem like very many dollars goes very far. We are pretty conservative people and don't go crazy at Christmas. We spend about $100 per kid, and feel good about that. We don't have satellite or cable TV. We don't give the kids TV's for their rooms, or buy video games or phones or any of that. We do give the kids cheap tablet's but they are limited on when and how much they get to use them, and monitor what they do with them. No YouTube allowed, or other social media apps/programs. We use them a lot for homework, and just games. So, anyway.... we don't spend big dollars on what has become the "normal" things to buy kids. It's a struggle too, because we are a blended family. (Both my wife and I were married before, so the kids also have other homes to live at.) They "other" houses don't share our desire to keep the kids away from electronics until they are old enough to use them responsibly.... so we battle the kids. We hear a lot of, "But at dad's house....."
Well.... feel free to comment. I just thought I'd share some of our Christmas with you all. How's yours?
How many people shop online? Do you also go out and shop in a store?
We did both this year. We buy more and more online every year, and personally, I like it better. Better prices, and most of the time free shipping. Can't beat that! But we did go out today and shop. We had to travel 45/50 miles to go to any stores, and not even good ones. We are very rural, and have to drive 2 hours to get to a Target, or anything other than Wal-Mart. Really sucks, so we just would rather not. We did have a good day, and the people were nice. Didn't see anyone fighting, (or hear them) and we heard a lot of "Merry Christmas" from people. That's not the norm anymore, so I was happy.
The one thing I wanted to say is, as we are buying for 5 kids, it's disappointing to see all the stuff piled up and know how much it cost. Doesn't seem like very many dollars goes very far. We are pretty conservative people and don't go crazy at Christmas. We spend about $100 per kid, and feel good about that. We don't have satellite or cable TV. We don't give the kids TV's for their rooms, or buy video games or phones or any of that. We do give the kids cheap tablet's but they are limited on when and how much they get to use them, and monitor what they do with them. No YouTube allowed, or other social media apps/programs. We use them a lot for homework, and just games. So, anyway.... we don't spend big dollars on what has become the "normal" things to buy kids. It's a struggle too, because we are a blended family. (Both my wife and I were married before, so the kids also have other homes to live at.) They "other" houses don't share our desire to keep the kids away from electronics until they are old enough to use them responsibly.... so we battle the kids. We hear a lot of, "But at dad's house....."
Well.... feel free to comment. I just thought I'd share some of our Christmas with you all. How's yours?
But like I told her, I don't need anything, I've got it all with you honey.
But seriously, I get what I need, when I need it. So yeah, we don't get each other anything. She does pick us up 3 lobster tails, and we have that together as our "Christmas".
Jon asked about shopping in stores or online. Sorry everyone, She shops, I do not.
Mostly in the store. She works there, so it's easy for her...
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