behind - again

once upon a time i used to have all of my Christmas shopping done by Hallowe'en (probably another very good reason for why i like Hallowe'en so well). ok, granted, there are some gifts you just cannot purchase months in advance - Godiva chocolate covered cherries for example (for mom) - but for the most part, i have been very very good about getting nearly everything done early.

however, in recent years (i.e. since getting married and having a baby) i have been slipping farther and farther behind.

so far this year i have my in-laws done.

yep... that's it.

ok, not entirely it, it, but they're the only people I have done. and that's not really a fair measure because they put a limit on me, and really, there's not a lot you can do in the parameters they set up... so they were easy too. the rest of my family and friends, not so much...

i still have about half of my husband's gifts to go. ditto with mom and dad. i'm still debating on what to do for the baby, since i know she'll be "wallowing in spoildiferous" between her grandparents and i have already pretty much bought her everything i was "desperate" to get her (which i can afford) with the exception of some learning software... which i may well still get. as for my friends, for most of them, i don't even have a list drawn up to shop from, so i'm really up a creek. (note to anyone who reads this blog and was planning on x-mas-ing me, a paddle would really come in handy most days...) and remember how i said i was done for my in-laws, i lied. i only have my MIL done, i still have to find something for my FIL from the baby.

on an up note, this is year three or four now that over 50% of my holiday shopping has been done on line (the postal, UPS, and FedEx people HATE my household between August and the end of the year) and this year I finally wised up and am shopping as much as is humanly possible through my Club Mom account earning lots of juicy points that I can spend on something as horribly selfish as possibly my husband's birthday (february) gift. te he.

on an even upper note, i am v. proud to announce that absolutely none, zip, zero, nada, of my shopping has hit a credit card. every single purchase has been "cash" out of my checking debit... not only cash, but pre-saved cash that i had set aside for Christmas specifically.
realistically, however, i am at the end of that money with only half of my purchases made, and will likely be budgeting a lot more strictly for the next two checks to get the rest of my shopping done. either that, or i'm going to have to re-check my inventory and decide that i have, indeed, done enough shopping all together and focus on making myself the gift and being nicer and more considerate and all that crap at home.

then again, it's not too late to get a second "holiday income" job...