Welcome to my Stress Free Holidays series, I will be sharing some tips to reduce the amount of stress this time of year puts on all of us. Some are ones I have used, some are ones I will be instituting this year, and some I will be using in the future. If you have any great ways to reduce the amount of stress please feel free to share them with us!
Let's talk about extra gifts, for me this is a standard thing but I have come to learn that not everyone does this. I always have around 6-10 extra gifts on hand for people who I may have forgotten or may not have expected a gift from and want to reciprocate. It reduces the frantic feeling of wondering if you have everyone on your list or having to say but I don't have a gift for you and feeling guilty. So some ideas of this is to pick up some rather generic gifts like mugs with coffee, tea or hot chocolate, nice ornaments for the tree, stationery sets with nice pens and envelopes, bottles of wine are always a good one too (we buy a case and put them in coordinating bags - red in dark bags or red and white in lighter bags so we can give a preferred type) and this year I have managed to catch a good deal on cozy blankets. Another thing to have on hand is gift cards, I keep a few smaller ones of $10-$15 to places like the coffee shop, amazon and the grocery store and keep them in nice envelopes in my purse for gift giving on the go.
I need to do this. I always get surprised by someone who got me something. I’ll have to remember this tip.
ReplyDeleteAnother good idea is Movie night gifts with a variety of $1 candies and bags of popcorn with popcorn bowls. An inexpensive but useful gift, sometimes I will include a Redbox Gift Card too.
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