How we plan for the holidays

[JamiDesigns]

Usually we start shopping for Christmas and our daughter's b'day in the summer time and continue to get things here and there, when they are on sale, throughout the year. This year was different though. This summer I was pregnant and preparing to have our baby boy, so we didn't get to start our Christmas shopping and daughter's b'day shopping til Oct., however, we got it all done by the end of Oct. We buy things on sale and use coupons.

We get ideas from our daughter and each other of what we want for Christmas. We make a list and we shop around for the best deal. We DO NOT take advantage of Black Friday because honestly, there is no need for us to wake up that darn early just to rush to the stores and get all caught up in a crazy mess and HOPE that the gifts we went there to buy are STILL there! There was only ONE time when we bought anything at a Black Friday sale and it was when the PS3 first came out. Our local Walmart had them go on sale for $399, and at the time that was BEST deal you could get, and at that time, in our area, NO stores had PS3's available...everyone in the entire county and next county over had sold out of them. My husband really wanted one, so we waited around at Walmart for 2 hrs. until they went on sale (it was a 24 hrs. Walmart Supercenter), and right when it was time, my husband was the first person in line to get one...LOL. He played that stupid game system for about 3 mos. and then turned around and sold it and the $300 worth of games he bought for it...because he thought the system sucked.