Monday, December 5, 2011

Christmas gifts- lists or no?

I pretty much know what I'm getting every year for Christmas and you know what?  That's okay with me.  Brian asks for a list every year and I give him one.  And really, I give him one that is at least fairly close to our budget, meaning I could end up with everything on it.  He gives me a list too, and he's usually even more specific than I am.  Like, he figures out what everything costs and then gives me a list that costs exactly what we have budgeted.  And that's fine by me.

That said, neither of us are "receiving gifts" love language people.  So I like gifts, and I'm not going to turn them down, but I don't feel less loved if Brian buys from a list instead of taking it upon himself to come up with the perfect gift on his own.  (Gifts are low enough on each of our love language things that we don't do gifts for Valentines Day, our anniversary, or mother's/father's day.)

Anyway, how do you do it?  Do you write a list?  Do you prefer to buy from a list, or do you want to come up with something on your own?  Are we super boring because we're list people?  (I do love me some lists you know.)

11 comments:

  1. List! I love lists. Greatest Christmas present invention ever.

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  2. We're more boring. We have lists of gift cards we want. Mainly for going out to eat. I used to be clever but after starting our relationship with an autographed first edition "Power of One" and an autographed orange Ed McCaffrey jersey, I'm done. ;) He gets gift cards now. Or maybe new socks.

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  3. We do lists and email links and taking the person shopping with us.

    I would rather have a surprise unloading of the dishwasher or random project around the house unknowingly tackled than a surprise sweater. I value one more than the other, I guess. :)

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  4. We're definitely list-y people. Neither of us is very good at picking out gifts for the other without help, which is why without a list we default to some crazy expensive thing we know the other person wants has been deemed not in the budget.

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  5. I would love it if my husband could read my mind and get me the perfect gift without me having to utter a word, or at least put in a concerted effort to get my something he sincerely thought I wanted, and also do his level best to get whatever it is as cheap as possible because it drives me nuts when people overpay. Whew. But. None of this has ever happened, so I try to give him general guidelines if I can. I need to get better at this. Gift giving isn't my love language either. I wish he'd give me a list.

    That said, I ask my parents for gift ideas, but I usually can't stand the lists they give me, usually consisting of a smattering of CDs and movies. These are fine gifts, but it doesn't feel right from adult child to parent at Christmas. Or am I crazy? If I am, just tell me, no sweat.

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  6. I have a list, but I doubt my husband would think to look there. He usually buys me jewelry off of Etsy and hopes I'll like it. It's a hit or miss situation, but I love the sentiment. He claims to never want anything for Christmas so he has NO list. Ever. Among some other smaller things, he'll be getting Amazon gift cards for Kindle books, which is entirely romantic, I know.

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  7. I really like the idea of Jason coming up with a thoughtful gift that I love all on his own. But given how particular I am and how creative Jason isn't, I'm not sure that's possible.

    I'm reminded of that Smack the Pony clip, "And he should surprise me with presents...but they should mainly be things that I wanted already." I would rather tell him exactly what to get me than have him spend money on something I only marginally want.

    So ever since the vacuum cleaner I tell him exactly what to get me. Yes, he actually bought me a vacuum cleaner for a combination Christmas / one year anniversary present.

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  8. We're not big on gifts for each other...we usually just buy something for the house and call it a joint present. Much easier!

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  9. Using your own logic about knowing everything you're getting because it's what you really want was my same thinking in picking out my own wedding ring. Understand now? ;)

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  10. I like to give a list of ideas and then be surprised by the ones he chooses.

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  11. I usually tell him exactly what I want and then he goes rogue. Sometimes it goes great, like when he surprised me with an iPad last year.
    It makes me bonkers when I tell him what I want and he says no, that's not a gift. I love gift cards but he doesn't think they count as gifts. My theory is, you are giving me two gifts, the gift card and the gift of shopping.

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