Some of you may have gotten all those Black Friday deals so you might be done with your Christmas shopping if so I might be a little late, I do apologize, but just in case you wanted to wait until the last minute or you never start before December 1st then this will be perfect for you. So I decided to come up with a 2 part series "StepMOM Guide to Christmas Shopping"!
As Stepmom buying gifts for my kids means being strategic. Some of my kids' parents will be buying a whole bunch of gifts and we will be buying up a whole bunch of gifts for them as well. Others if we don't do the buying they will not have a Chrismas.
In the past, this meant my step kids sometimes ended up with two of the same thing, it took us a little bit of time to get that communication going. One night one of my stepkids was talking to his siblings about where he would get the best gift, which can sometimes make you feel like there is some competition...So over these next few blogs, I wanna go over not only the gift giving plan but what it can mean for our kids.
A BLENDED FAMILY GIFT PLAN IS NEEDED
It Makes No Difference if it's your 1st or 25th Christmas together, a plan for Christmas shopping is always needed for your blended family.
Parenting between you and your spouse is whatever you make it for your blended family. Before you consider outsiders input on what should be on the Chrismas Shopping List for the kids it is important to talk about what is important to the both of you. This is especially needed when you both bring kids into your blended family mix.
TRY SOMETHING NEW AND SIMPLE
Maybe you have a certain way that you buy for your kid and maybe you're clueless if that will work for your StepKids, but I was talking to an awesome stepmom just like you and she was telling me about this article she was reading about buying three different gifts for all of her kids, you know one gift was something they need, the other one something they wanted and the last gift was something that was magical, something traditional something that would have sentimental value so to speak and that could either be a homemade gift or something like a keepsake type of thing.
I loved this idea, how about you?
WHAT IS YOUR GIFT BUYING PLAN?
Whatever you do have a plan that both you and your spouse can agree upon. You should be able to answer the following;
1. How much are you going to spend?
2. Will you spend the same on all kids or base it on how much they will get for the other household?
3. Who will get what or what you will not be getting?
4. Will there be a coordination of efforts with the other household so that there is no overlap of gifts?
I'll talk more about gift buying and your blended family on next week's blog!
