Buying gifts doesn't usually rank high in a person's list of
favorite things to do. Making them might rank quite a bit
higher... but fewer and fewer of us find the time to fit that
into our busy lives. Yet most of us love to give gifts! It's a
dilemma a lot of us face.
Few people enjoy rushing to fulfill a gift-giving desire -
Last Minute Shopping is almost always a hectic burden on the
shopper... unless he’s expressly given himself time to enjoy
that. (But doesn’t that supposedly set-aside block of time so
often disappear when something else suddenly crops up? All those
movie and TV dilemmas about the businessman sheepishly
delegating gift-procurement to his secretary on Christmas Eve
must be based on something...)
There isn’t one right time to start your holiday
shopping... unless it’s now! If you stumble on
something that feels exactly right for Uncle John now,
get it. If you follow this principle, your gift list will be
short by next November.
Of course, shopping ahead isn’t always a good
idea... Kids might grow out of February-sized clothes by
December. Uncle John might get himself that item he’s
been talking about (or Aunt Mary might give it to him for his
birthday). You might have no place to store the playhouse from
June through December 25th. But most suitable gifts
won’t fall into this category.
Anyway, nothing’s to stop you from planning ahead...
A list of gift ideas is almost as valuable as a closet
full of gifts for much of the year. When you stumble on an idea
that seems right for Uncle John, jot it down... in your planner,
on a sheet of paper in your desk drawer. (I always carry some
sort of little pad of paper with me so I don’t lose ideas - of
any sort - before I can transfer them to the right "holding
tank".) If you have a few Uncle John ideas by November, then
you can check them against the current Uncle John scenario to
see which fits best.
Planning is also important if you’re going to make your own
gifts. Christmas catalogs often give people ideas for
gift-making... too late for that year! So... write them down,
and round about summer, or early fall, choose from them and
organize the materials (if you haven’t already done so!). Then
you can more or less leisurely create and have time to
wrap and package and mail/deliver in time for the holiday
target.
