I thought Christmas was in the winter?

Is it just me, or does it seem like Christmas is being shoved down our throats sooner than normal? Don’t get me wrong. I freakin’ love me some Christmas time. The music, the awesome movies, and the overall joyful spirit of most people make it my favorite holiday. But Christmas spirit is for Christmas time, and according to my calendar we still got plenty of time before Santa Clause’s fat butt makes its way down my non-existent chimney (so sad the Ninja abode doesn’t have a fireplace).

Costco started putting their Christmas products out back in mid-October. OCTOBER! That’s insanity. I mean come on, we had two MAJOR holidays to get through, Halloween and Thanksgiving. I think Costco is lame for jumping the gun on the Christmas spirit. I’m a much bigger fan of the way Nordstrom has handled the holiday season. Check it…

Although I don’t like celebrating Xmas before Thanksgiving, it’s important to be mindful of the expenses associated with the season. To the best of my knowledge, Girl Ninja and I have spent exactly $0.00 on Christmas gifts thus far. There are five in my family and six in Girl Ninja’s. That makes eleven total people we will be buying gifts for (counting ourselves). Since it takes a good chunk of time to shop for eleven different people, we sat down last weekend to discuss our Christmas budget.

Last year we spent around $1,000 (don’t remember exactly how much) and felt pretty good about it. We were able to get some solid gifts for the ones we love without losing sight of what the day is really about. Since the budget last year seemed pretty reasonable we decided to keep it the same this go around.

As Girl Ninja and I talked about what our limit was for each other we thought about making it a set dollar amount (like $200 each), but instead decided on a new strategy. After we buy our nine family members gifts, we will split the left-over money between the two of us. If we spend $600 on our family, that leaves $200 for each of us to spend on each other. If we spend $800 on them, we have $100 for each of us. Definitely keeps things interesting.

I have no idea how good of an idea this actually is, but you know what they say ” ‘Tis the season…to totally experiment with a new way of budgeting.” Yeah, that’s exactly what they say. Right?

How much is the Christmas shopping budget in your household? Do you set a specific limit for each family member (like siblings $50, parents $100 etc)? Anyone else notice stores started pushing Christmas way early this year? WHY!?