Welcome to my 3-part series dedicated to gift-giving. Yay! Part 1 here is all about mindset. Part 2 is the HOW-TO. And Part 3 is all my gifting faves this year. Happy Holidays! :)

Gifting is a State of Mind

Ideally, we would all be taking the holidays in stride. Enjoying one another’s company, celebrating the reason for the season, decorating, baking, laughing, and creating. Oh, and exchanging a few carefully chosen (with love and affection) gifts with those we hold near and dear. Alas, often the opposite is our reality. After all, even if you accomplish all the holiday things, AND you make it to the Christmas Eve service, it still comes down to the morning of December 25th and all the promise it holds.

As a kid, I was all about that Toys ‘Я’ Us catalog that miraculously showed up in our mailbox this time of year. I would devour that thing, circling and starring and noting color preferences. I could do Santa’s job for him! As an adult, of course, the tables have turned. I count all the family and friends in my life as blessings and all I want for Christmas is to shower them with all the things! (Cue Oprah, “YOU get the things, and YOU get the things, and also YOU get the things!”)

This is about getting to know people better.

Listen Up!

I’ll just cut right to the chase. This is about getting to know people better. Giving and receiving gifts is an attitude of gratitude! I know, it’s cheesy. But all this gifting we do really is much easier if you’re in the zone. What zone? The one in which we are in the habit of paying attention and listening to one another. People will tell you what they want. Maybe not directly, but if you are really hearing another person, you will pick up on their interests, wants, needs, favorites, and loves. Those are the things that should guide your gift-giving decisions.

So alright, fine, Christmas is right around the corner. Now, I try to always be in the zone, and I wish I could say that I finished all my Christmas shopping way back in September, but no. Once again, I find myself on the verge of panicking because I so very much want to gift everyone the perfect thing, that one thing they didn’t even know they wanted, the quintessential present, which would make me the paragon of gift givers, but there’s not much time. In other words, I love to give gifts and I want an A+ every time, no matter the time I have. Selfish? Maybe a tiny bit. Never said I wasn’t.

Unfortunately, my ambition does not necessarily match my budget, schedule, and/or ability. In fact, it’s often quite the opposite. I have visions of carefully selecting a top-of-the-line smoker for the husband, or spending hours browsing for just the right necklace for the daughter, or even meticulously re-creating the keepsake letter written by my Granny to my mother (the ink is starting to fade so I’ve gotta do something to preserve it!). Seriously, ain’t nobody got time (or money or skills) for that!

What’s a girl to do? First, she’s gotta know where she stands. Know how much time, energy, and money you want to spend. Keep in mind that spending too much of any of those things is NEVER a gift to ANYONE. Do what you are comfortable doing. Once you have that squared away, start brainstorming. There must be a way to give the perfect gift without all the stress! But asking or being asked what to get someone is a drag. So here’s the deal:

Write it down!

Inevitably at this time of year, or before a birthday, I am asked what to get for someone. Now, over the years I have learned to “write it down!” when I come up with a good gift idea. I know the biggest lie I ever tell myself is that ‘I’ll remember it’. In fact, I will NOT. So I have some pages in a OneNote workbook where I have always “jotted down” ideas when they occur to me.

Heck, I’ll even text myself!

This is truly a lifesaver when the birthday or holiday rolls around and I can’t think of one tiny thing to give. I took this one step further, with the advent of Pinterest (hallelujah!), and created some boards (I keep them secret) just for gift ideas for all the peeps in my life! This year, I wanted to take it to the next level.

My whole family is on Pinterest; even the boys (sports, welding projects, hair cut ideas, those kinds of things). Each of us created our own board (called it “Random Crap I want” or “If you ever want to know what to give me” or “Dreamy Stuff I like”) and spent a few moments pinning some gift ideas for ourselves. Here were the criteria to get us started:

Favorites (music, movie, color, author)
Practical needs (auto, home, beauty)
…or problems to solve
Wishful wants (if money were no object)
Food & Drink (duh)
Experiences (things you want to try or already have tried & love)
Hobbies (sports, collections, skills)

Then we shared these boards with each other. You can leave them public for all to see. Who knows? There may be some other human out there with similar interests and your board could be helpful to that person! Either way, a Pinterest board is a great place to start your Christmas brainstorming. Plus, my own board is a good place to keep track of stuff I like; you know, for when I win the lottery.

Side note: Sites like MyRegistry.com are a great way to pull together all those ideas in a streamlined registry format. You can even set up a cash fund to which guests can contribute (even one for the charity of your choosing!). It’s like Pinterest, but a completely “clickable” shopping list.

Now, the Pinterest strategy worked better for the ladies in my life than for the gents. They just can’t seem to grasp the abstract concept of pulling these ideas out of thin air and pinning them. (Pinning them to what, and where’s the end of this thing?) So here’s Plan B for “the Boys” in my life:

Print it, Text it & Forget it

CLICK HERE to download my FREE worksheet!

Turns out these guys prefer a more “direct” method. But to give them a little room to still be thoughtful, I came up with a little one-two punch. First, use my FREE handy-dandy worksheet to give him lots of ideas and second, text him the link to your Pinterest board of ideas. Do both on the day he plans to go shopping.

And sweetheart, if he has a day/time set aside to go tackle this chore, BE THANKFUL. Then once you give him the ideas, don’t look back. It’s up to him now and you don’t want the burden of micromanaging what everyone is gifting everyone else, including you. That won’t feel very Christmassy at all! Nope, time to sit back and count those blessings. Celebrate the fact that you have a ding-a-ling or two in your life with whom you can exchange gifts in the first place. They are so good at so many other things; don’t worry about it if they’re not so good at gift-giving. It just might not be their “love language”.

But I wouldn’t leave you hangin’ sista. Check back tomorrow for the nitty-gritty of HOW to come up with all the ideas!

Happy gift-giving season! (Don’t forget to ask him to fill out the worksheet too ;)

HELP for Christmas Crunch Time PART 1