I love gift giving more than anything, but in the past I’ve gotten caught up in all the holiday good cheer, and ended up spending a bunch more than I meant to spend. This year I am giving myself a budget – per person and per gift – and I am limiting myself to cash, no credit. I just read a study indicating that on average, those who use credit cards to buy their gifts during the holidays, don’t get those bills completely paid off until July. A little scary, because if you do take that long to pay, and tack on all those months of interest charges, your Black Friday deals will end up costing a fortune. So this year, it’s a debit card for me.

I love gift giving so much that I can get fixated, obsessed with finding the perfect gift. So, I slip into super sleuth mode, observe, and ask questions to really get to the bottom of what people want for the holidays. So far my “fly on the wall” technique has revealed that: my parents need some nice wine glasses; my niece (who is about to finish graduate school) needs a presentable bag to impress her new bosses; Stephen secretly wants a Nintendo Wii, and needs some new grey socks (he is trying out this grey sock only thing, rationalizing that they go w/ anything, and with all one color he never has to worry about matching socks after the wash. A whole other blog, but I’ve decided the idea is worth my support); and that my pets are spoiled and don’t really need anything. But I’ll spend too much money on them anyway.

When buying gifts, I go for things that are unexpected, functional, or both, and I always try to be specific to the person. For the traveler in your life, for instance, a simple, clear bag, of federal aviation regulation style and size, pre-packed with chic, or favorite toiletries makes an excellent gift. These types of gifts are inexpensive, but the time you put into them, and the time you save your friend, colleague, or loved one, really make them shine – especially if it’s the kind of thing that always tends to get moved to the back burner if you have to do it on your own. I would love to have someone pull something together for me like this…hint, hint.

Quite possibly my most successful unexpected gift ever, fancy packing aside, was a really top-notch massaging chair pad that I gave my parents a few years ago. They draped it over their rocking chair, and the combination of the rocking and massaging is a fool-proof sleep inducer. Even the most unexpected gifts should be selected to fit the recipient. Just because you’re 87-year-old Aunt Erma would be surprised to find a pot-bellied-pig with a bow on it’s head under her tree, doesn’t mean you should get her one.

How do you guys budget your holiday spending? What special gift ideas do you have in mind? What do you guys get for those, hard to shop for folks…we all have them? Let us know!

Let’s make this holiday season one to remember!