delphernina

Aw that's too bad. I'm lucky in that my 12 yo does a fairly convincing job of "believing" in santa. I think he gave santa up around 9, but he's always been happy to foster the belief in santa.

List on bf - otherwise I'll get overwhelmed and forget, but the rest of the year I just pick up whatever it is I find on sale that looks like it would be appreciated. So both.

Santa also always has special shiny wrapping paper - so they really stand out against all the other presents.

I agree. I do hope they get a better clue this year though. I mean, bathrobes? I liked the early laptop deal though.

I've already started on my homemade holiday gifts. I am a student, and I get incredibly busy once school starts and I tend to run out of time so this year I started early. So far I've made a camouflage baby blanket for a nephew. And started sewing a super simple doggie bed for my mom, and an afghan for a niece. I'll probably just make some super simple bathmilks for the teachers and siblings. But those will wait till December.

We put our decorations up early, so we're ready to take them down early too! Usually, we put ours up the day before Thanksgiving, so the house is nicely decorated when the family comes for dinner AND so we have a place to put the presents we buy on bf. We take the tree down as we are cleaning up from opening our Christmas presents. It's always so nice to see them go up, but just as refreshing to see them go down.

We usually save them and later when we get a lot of snow, the kids crush them up and sprinkle them on freshly scooped snow to make "snow ice cream". There's probably something bad about that, but man we have such good memories doing that.

Everyone in the family gets to pick 1 gift on Christmas Eve - with help from mom and dad - don't want to ruin any surprised you know. The next morning, the kids are allowed to tear into their gifts from Santa and their stockings, at that point I call grandma and tell her she can come over and then they must wait until I'm done cooking breakfast for the family. The kids usually just munch on christmas candy, and when grandma comes we start opening presents one at a time. It's usually quite a long drawn out ordeal - but I hate it when the kids open a present from someone and we don't even get to see their expression. I want to see the joy darnit!

I've been pretty fortunate. I don't know if I'm just lucky, or what, but almost everyone I've dealt with has been polite and fun to be around on bf. (well, excluding that time a couple years ago when someone tried to take me out for a cabbage patch doll lol) Holidays don't tend to stress me out much at all - in fact, I take great comfort in sitting in my nicely decorated home watching the kids shake presents under the tree.....smelling all the aroma's of the holidays.

Usually, Santa just brings 1-2 gifts per child. Santa tends to bring THE gift of the year. So, last year, ds5 wanted a doodle monster, since walmart had that sale, AND I had already picked up a doodle monster, ds5 ended up with 3 presents under the tree, 2 doodle dino's and 1 doodle monster. While ds11 only had 1 present, an mp3 player. I don't worry overly much on making the kids gifts = in price for santa presents, because my youngest has no concept of $$ - just how much he wants a certain present. I do equal out the total amount of money I spend per kid total though. I have to say my youngest tends to have a LOT more presents under the tree than my oldest. But my oldest is savy enough to understand that his presents cost substantially more, so no hurt feelings. Noone minds here. Everyone is happy round my house on Christmas morning.

I always shop for my mom and my mil, because I always split the kids up and they babysit them for me. They're not quite spry enough to handle bf, AND I get the benefit of not having to worry about my kids while I'm out shopping. Oh, and I get to come home, take a nap, and wrap presents while the kids are away. It's a win/win situation for us. I do pick up an occasional item for a friend of mine if I happen to be shopping at a store that she needs something for one of her kiddos. But other than that, I kind of feel like if someone wants something - they should have to fight for it themselves. I'm not being grumpy - its just that I don't use carts on bf, and the more stuff I pick up for other people, then its more likely I'll have to handle the crowd with a cart. Cart + Black Friday = no fun

I'm with the $200 - $300 group. I just can't understand how people can go on the marathon bf shopping sprees that they do, I'm ALWAYS out of cash and back at home by noon. They must spend a LOT of money to be shopping until evening.

I'd give anything to be in that spot. I *just* started doing surveys though. I'm not sure if I can make it happen in time.

I shop with my dh. He makes a big deal out of saying he HATES to shop black friday but we really have fun. There's nobody I'd rather go shopping with. In years past I've shopped with various members of my family, and a couple of friends but unless someone begs to go with us - I'll just prefer to stick with dh.

Wow, you guys are hard core. I only THOUGHT I was a black friday shopper. I start at 3 am, but some years I have been back in my cozy bed by 7:30 am. Last year we went out of town to shop, so we had some travel time and we were still back by noon. I love to shop black friday as much as the next guy, but my pocket book gets a bit empty well before your apparently. Even if I had the stamina (which I don't) there's no way I could afford to buy everything. Which leads me to my next question, how much do you spend on Black Friday? I usually keep it well under $300. But then, I don't really rely much on Black Friday for my overall Christmas budget. Usually I've bought most of the Christmas presents well before that time at various sales - and just use black friday to finish my Christmas shopping up.

Thanks, I'll have to look for Leapster games!

My ds6 loves loves loves his leapster. He's able to play all the (age appropriate) games, but not able to play gameboy games nearly as well. Part of me is thinking of buying him a gameboy for Christmas, but then an even larger part of me says, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Seeing as though he's thrilled with the Leapster. Dh and I were talking the other day, and of all the presents we have EVER bought our boys, the leapster we got 2 years ago has had the most play. As far as nintendo ds and psp - it depends on the age of your child, for me, I'd go with the ds for the 7 1/2, just because there are soooo many games available. My 12yo on the other hand, wishes he had bought the psp instead of his ds. We're looking to get him a psp for Christmas this year, it has so many neat features that work well for an older child.

Don't feel bad, my Target sucks too. I've been watching the Target threads for well over a year and have NEVER been able to get any of the deals. Until that is, we went out of town and just happened to be able to get the 75% off toys.

At my Wal-Mart I have to bring the ads in. Every year until last I've pricematched. Last year, my local walmart changed their policy and refused to price match because we live too far away from the other retailers. I had to drive to the other town to go to a walmart to price match. It sucked, because I found out when I got back home that my walmart did indeed pricematch after all. Kind of irked me, because I was told very firmly that if I tried to pricematch at my local walmart it would be refused.

I finally get to post in this thread! I read it all the time, but I never can find ANY deals at my target. My target is either really picked over, or it just sucks. Can't decide. Today I had to go out of town for a doctors appointment, and while I was there I popped in to a Target. Totally scored! The toys all said 30& off, but were not. I picked up: BratzPixie Yasmine doll for 4.98 reg 19.98 Magnetix for 2.48 reg 9.99 and 3.74 reg 14.?? A spiderman bug vacuum 3.24 reg 12.xx, Leapster Letterpillar game 4.72 reg 18.98 Doodle shark pal 2.98 reg? toy measuring tape (been looking for one of these forever lol) 1.98 reg 7.98 "fireworks" launch rocket 4.98 reg 19.98 Frog jacks - for stocking stuffers .98 My First Magic Set for 3.74 reg $14.98 and last but not least - a pair of new school shoes for my incredibly picky ds 4.98 reg 17.99 I walked out of there $52 poorer, but I had to pick up a toy for a birthday party and some school shoes and had budgeted $30 total for those. So I feel like I picked up quite a few Christmas presents for $20. I think my total before sale would have been somewhere around $175. (I'm not POSITIVE on the regular prices, those are my best recollection - I already peeled off the stickers, and it's not listed on my receipt) There was quite a bit more, but dh didn't want me buying anymore AND I had a 1st grader in tow and it was getting rather difficult to hide the presents under a towel!

I'm really starting to get the black friday ::twitch:: Ugh.... every year this happens to me, I start obsessing over bf and have a hard time concentrating on anything else.

My coupon specifically said it would not be good scanned?!? I lucked out, my mom gave me hers, so I picked up some jeans for the boy.

I wonder if the Junie B. Jones leapster game is on sale. My ds has so many games, but he really wants the Junie B. Jones one, and well, his birthday is about a month away.

What do you mean? Like we can scan this with our scanner and then use it? They'll accept that?

I've NEVER had a JC Penney's card and I got one. Oh well, not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!