Christmas - Presents

Christmas is a demanding holiday and I am finding that it becomes more so with each passing year. I guess that makes sense when you consider it is no longer just our children we shop for but with spouses and grandchildren we have an additional 6 people on our list. Next Christmas, Lord willing, we will add two new bundles of blessing to our shopping list.
It was easy when our children were little. I knew what they needed and wanted and it was relatively simple and pleasurable to go shopping for them.
Now they are all adults, each one very different from the other with different sets of circumstances surrounding their lives and different needs. We really try to get things that they want. We have them give us lists of things they would like to have or need and that really does help.
We have simplified some of shopping by purchasing gift cards which saves a lot of time, plus then they can get what they want and have the pleasure of going shopping when it suits them and when they can maximize their buying power during the after Christmas sales.
Shopping on line makes Christmas easier too. We did more of that this year. We even did some of our shopping on e-bay. Probably the biggest time saver is not shopping for a lot of clothes. When the children were little we didn't just splurge on toys and gadgets. We used Terry's Christmas bonus to buy needed clothing items for them. Of course they were growing so fast, keeping up with wardrobe needs was constant. That was true for us all the way through their college years. Doing that now would be exhausting. It just gets very complicated trying to find the right size, style, particular item and at the right price! This year even though I did buy clothes for everyone I bought fewer clothing items than I ever have. In all I think I only went Christmas shopping 3 times with Terry doing the last minute shopping for the few items that rounded out our gift giving.
I hope our family would agree that it was a very pleasant Christmas. I don't think I wore myself out as much as I might have and I think for the most part needs and wants were attended to.