When do you start shopping? We will start any time now. We will keep our eye out for anything the boys have on their lists and buy it. We do the bulk of our shopping after Black Friday though. We go when we have a sitter so Tim and I can both shop!! Before the little boys came along, I was usually done shopping by October. Now buying for 4 boys, it is a bit tougher!
Do you set an over all budget or a budget for each person you're shopping for? We put aside a chunk of money every March. We use that money for birthdays and Christmas. We have a set amount per person. We usually stick to the budget, except the year we bought their iPads....we went almost $500 over budget per boy!!!!
Who do you buy for? The 4 boys, Tim, my parents, Tim's parents, Tim's sister/DH, great nieces/nephews, my cousin's 3 kiddos and my boys do an exchange every year, teachers, my family has an exchange so we buy for one person.
Does Santa bring all the gifts or just one big one? We have never told the boys "this is from us or this is from Santa". We usually take credit for the big gift (like the iPads) or a bigger combined gift that they all can use (Disney Infinity this year) and they get that on Christmas Eve. The boys just assume the rest is from Santa and we are OK with that. The boys have been told though that we give Santa money to make the gifts so if there was ever an issue with $$ we have that to fall back on.
Do you do exchange any gifts on Christmas eve? Yes! The big gift/combined gift from us
