I was going to write a little article today on how to make Christmas shopping more pleasant and who wouldn’t want it to be just that. It seems that everytime I go out shopping at Christmas time it is long, exhausting, and a lot frustrating.
This is terrible. Christmas shopping should be fun and exciting!
Anyway Laura had some ideas on the subject and I would like to add my two cents as well. Here are six tips to make Christmas shopping a little better for you than it was last year and years past as well.
Healthy Christmas Shopping
1. Don’t eat the food. If you are going to spend a few hours at the mall try to make sure that you are well fueled up beforehand. Eat lunch or dinner before you go so that you are not stuck eating that crappy food fair fare.
2. Chop the trips up. In the past I would go out on December 24th with the plan of buying everything for everybody in one long day of shopping. Not only did I feel horrible when I left the house having all this pressure on me but with this pressure I had no choice but to get all my purchases done no matter how poorly. Instead, start a few weeks early and only go out for a couple or three hours at a time.
3. Shop for one person a trip. The most important thing about Christmas shopping is that Christmas is supposed to be about the people around you. Go out with ideas of what you would like to get that one or maybe two people that day and have a list of their interests and small ideas to help guide you.
4, Stretch, Drink water, and take care of yourself while you are out. This includes making sure that you stash your heavy jacket somewhere. Malls are notoriously dry and they really feed on you going and buying drinks and snacks to keep yourself going. With all the walking, noise and people cutting you off you want to be limber and hydrated so that your Christmas shopping will be successful and pleasant and you do not feel beat up when you get in the car.
5. Try to shop with only one or two people with you. The last thing that you want to do when rushing around a mall is getting lost and being dragged in every direction because you are with so many people trying to go to so many places. You want to have fun being with one or two people but at the same time you want to make sure that you are not having to try to keep up or wait for the rest of your crew while you are out.
6. Stay away from the hype to save money. I find that sometimes the money flows a bit easy at the mall with all the excitement and the ringing of the cash registers being more than a little reminiscent of Las Vegas. If you keep a budget for the day you will be much happier once January and the Christmas credit card bills come around. If you see a great deal first make sure that it is a great deal compared to what you were planning to spend and remember that just around the corner you will need to pay for an unexpected big purchase.
This list was just a few thing that I thought of off the top of my head. We all know how stressful Christmas can be and I think that the shopping is the worst. So if you can break up your shopping and not feel as rushed I believe that this Christmas will be a much easier shopping time for you.
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