brynnfromtheblock

Here's a scientific theory for it......((O*A) - I) / W O = Stores that are open first times A = Stores that in are a good area (have other stores near them that you want to visit) minus I = The most important item on your list all divided by W = What you can price match at Walmart!! LOL!!

All I've gotten for them so far is a Oregon Scientific Globe and Magic book for my oldest..... I use the deals I find here for everyone else throughout the year.. then on the last weekend in Oct my mom and I go to an outlet mall for my birthday and "officially" begin the shopping so I save money for that and of course BF.

I love the ones at Costco, BJ's and Sams.. they're expensive though..anywhere from 20 to 100 bucks depending on what's in it... Sams used to go 50percent the day after Christmas (I've noticed they don't do that anymore) and we used to go get all we could that didn't look Christmasy.... I'd use them for early year birthdays and Mothers Day

My family has always been big on gifts and the major ones are my mom, 3 kids, dh, grandma, brothers and their kids.... then you add on good friends, their kids, teachers and it gets up there...the other problem is on Christmas Eve we have a huge party which is where we exchange gifts with everyone but my mom and brothers families ('cause we see each other the next day)... so I give my best friends kids and cousins kids stuff at the same time.. but then you have all these other kids who see this and they're not getting anything so you feel bad and get something for them too.... then it works out the same with adults.. you keep thinking "it's just a few people that didn't get anything, let me get something small" and it's like a chain reaction (actually with some of these people it's more than 58 'cause I really didn't even count them on the list!!~

I looked at my list and I have 58 people on there.... granted some are big presents like dh and kids and some are small like teachers but geesh... I gotta cut back!!

I've never seen them on sale in the store, how much do they put them on sale?

That sounds like the best kind...

We used to do just cookies and milk... then my dd got an air hockey table (which we had to give her before christmas) and when it appeared we found out the top was cracked so we had to return it.... she couldn't figure out why Santa gave her a cracked table so we told her that we thought the reindeer wasn't happy that we didn't leave out any carrots for them so they took a bite out of the table, but that if we did on Christmas Eve Santa would bring us a new table... so now we leave carrots for the reinder too...

I always regift ... If I get something that I'm not going to use why throw it away???? especially if someone else might actually enjoy it... I have been regifted with something I gave though.... My MIL's family is very different from my for Christmas.. we all get each other something and they don't . They did a name drawing for a while and then she said that the family was so big we shouldn't do that anymore. My SIL and I tried to explain that no matter how big the family got everyone was just getting and giving one present but she didn't seem to get it.. anyway as one of her presents we gave her a snow man ornament in a beautiful red box, the next year I got it back with a new tag... my SIL was sitting next to me and I whispered "Rule #1 of regifting, don't give the gift back to the person that gave it to you" we were in stitches all morning and noone could figure out why!!!

That's actually the before (Explorer) version I think.. the Odyssey is the newer one... I saw an Oregon Scientific One that looks pretty cool too... it has all the standards capitals, countries etc, but also does anthems, money fly time and has a USB port on the pen to download updates to the globe... it also has 3 age ranges.. pretty similar to the Odyssey and the download thing makes it sound almost better.... I saw one at my BJ's for 89 I was thinking about getting it... My daughter would love it, I'm just afraid to blow most of her Christmas budget on it... she likes stuff like that though so I'm torn....

Who has the best selection and price on photo cards for Christmas? or do you think it's better to just put the picture in one of those premade Christmas photo cards? I can't decide how I want to do it... I think I'm going to buy some of the handmade photo holder cards at Costco and stick my own pictures in them.. but I'm not sure... what's the best way?

They had those on clearance a couple of months ago, I almost bought one and I can't remember why I didn't.... I think it didn't look Christmasy enough for me but not sure...

I just bought the best Advent Calendar at Costco.... I have been looking for 2 years now for a nice wooden Advent Calendar with drawers to use every year. I finally found one, it's in the shape of a house and has 3 carolers in snow on one side and 3 trees on the other. It was a bit expensive for me, 35 bucks, but all the other ones I found were alot smaller and not near as nice... the drawers are a great size for little gifts...yeah me!!

`Also costco has 5.0 for 79.99 (they also have 4.0 for 79 which I don't get.. why would you buy 4.0 when 5.0 is the same price?)

Blasphemer!!! :shock: LOL

We have a radio station that plays nothing but Christmas music starting on Black Friday.... so that's out theme music and the radio stays on that til Christmas.. how about you?

Thanks so much for the offer!! We got our shirts though at Michaels for 2 bucks each.. a bit more but we don't wear sweatshirts for too long down here and we got to choose a color other than white!!

Definitely Christmas Story for movie and now that's what I call Christmas for music

Probably the 149.00 BB desk tops last year (got one for my kids so they didn't need to use ours) and the 49.99 GBA SP's the year before....

If anyone sees a good deal on this can you reply to this post? I've seen it about 95.00 shipped, best deal... wondering if there's anything better out there... let me know!!

I have a brownie troop, but I think they're too young for that... I mean they're 6-8yoa, they'd have to get up at the crack of dawn, and then what do I do with them when it's time to shop???? LOL I think I'll pass the idea on to a local Junior or Cadette troop though.. they might be able to pull it off!!

Do you hide them, store them or wrap right away? I end up wrapping within a couple of days so noone gets nosy!!

No christmas bonus here.. I get my annual bonus in March though

I dunno.... they seemed pretty calm and orderly compared to my BB, they even had room to push carts... Here's a youtube of BF at Walmart..... how not to do it!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVvEChXulSs

That's cool.... I'm going to have to look at that as well!!