Holiday Gifting Strategy

You may have heard that the holidays are upon us. I probably say this every year but I feel like it was JUST July and now Halloween is already a week behind us and we are looking down the barrel of November, Thanksgiving, Starbucks red cups, holiday shopping, and Christmas. So in an effort to be more organized this year (ie: we cancelled our Amazon Prime membership and can’t rely on 2-day shipping), I have stepped up my gifting strategy and wanted to share with you ladies today.

I’m calling this a Holiday Gifting Strategy but I like to use it year round so I’m always prepared for birthdays, graduations, and other events that might pop up throughout the year. I’ve used it for my husband, my immediate family, my husband’s immediate family, as well as a place to store good gift ideas even if you don’t have a person to gift it to yet.

Holiday Gifting Strategy (aka Never Stress Over Holiday Gifts Again)

It’s fairly simple. Give yourself a block of time for brainstorming (bonus points for the addition of a warm and/or adult beverage) and boot up Excel or Google Sheets. You can also use the Notes app on your phone but I love Excel/Google Sheets (#nerdalert) because you can organize groups of people by tab.

Here you’re going to list everyone you need a gift for this season. I mean EVERYONE. List out your family members, your co-workers, your mailman, anyone who will host a holiday party or dinner and you’ll want a hostess gift, just put everyone on the list to get yourself started.

Sort them into their correct groupings. I keep it fairly simple with My Husband, My Family, His Family, Everyone Else. Within those tabs, you can organize by family unit or other categories that make sense to you (ie: co-workers, neighbors, church group, etc)

Now, are you going to be shipping any of these gifts? Add in the addresses now. Yes, this is the tedious part but it will be worth it to have all those addresses in one place when shipping time comes. I promise we are getting to the fun part.

Ok, now I like to add notes about people. This could be anything from shirt size to favorite colors to if they had a big life change recently. This column is here to help jog your memory about what this person might like/dislike or need this holiday season.

This notes section is why I like to keep this master gifting list up and running all year long. If someone off hand mentions they love a certain musician, for example, you can pop that into the NOTES column and get them something related when gifting season rolls around.

Now we are at the fun part. The final two columns on my list are the GIFT and the LINK column. Here is where you can brainstorm gifts, then add a link to where you can buy that gift.

Start filling out those lists and voila! Holiday shopping made easy. Now all you have to do is wait for the sales to start.

Don’t want to build this list yourself? Don’t worry, I’ve done it for you!

Just select “Holidays!” and sign up below to get my Holiday Gifting Strategy list built for excel. All you’ll have to do is fill in the name, addresses, and gifts. You’ll also be in the loop when the Holiday Sales do start rolling around plus you’ll have the opportunity to get exclusive gift guides that won’t make it onto the blog!

WHY THIS HOLIDAY GIFTING STRATEGY WORKS

This gifting strategy works for me because you get everyone down on a list BEFORE the craziness of the holidays starts. It’s basically the brain dump organization method but for holiday gifting. If you haven’t heard of the brain dump method, definitely check it out. I’ve been using it both at work and in my personal life and it’s been helping a TON (pregnancy brain is so real!)

It’s also a way to remember more personal details about someone. You can get them something that they’ll actually want, need, and/or use versus just more stuff.

Using this holiday gifting strategy also gives you one less thing to worry about in December, which is always a crazy busy month. You don’t have to buy the gifts all at once but having everything down on a list, ready to go, instead of trying to remember everything will clear up some mental bandwidth.

A bonus of this method, if you keep this list running year round, you have all your gift ideas and links set to go when the holidays (or birthdays, anniversaries, etc) roll around. You’ll be breezing through your holiday shopping list without any stress.

I hope that you test out this strategy and it eliminates a little stress for you this year. That is my goal for NWBlonde this holiday season so please let me know what you’d like to see. This will be even more so the case for my email subscribers so don’t forget to sign up for that Holiday Newsletter!

Until next time,
Ana Luiza