Gift giving is generally a lovely experience, centred around generosity and a joyous occasion. This couldn’t be more different from the average gift buying experience, which can quickly descend into chaos.
You end up spending far longer on your gift search than you’d ever imagined possible, can rarely find the right gift, and go way over budget. If that sounds like a familiar scenario to you, check out this guide to hacking gift giving this festive season with our top tips.
Start early
The most important tip is also the one that’s hardest to follow for most people. Starting early with your gift shopping makes the experience much less stressful, and opens up your options to no end.
Especially during festive periods, popular shops and vendors sell out of the good stuff early, leaving those who start late to choose between the unwanted, overpriced leftovers. Not ideal at all, so break the trend and start early this year.
So, if you’re planning to start early shopping, you need to keep the following tips in mind:
- Finalise your gift list and the list of stores you need to visit: Go through your gift list to streamline the shopping process. Determine what you need to buy in-store and online. Also, make sure you have a list of stores you should go for gift shopping. This way, you can buy the gifts you need beforehand for this year’s gift-giving.
- Begin shopping online: If you have a tight schedule, you can check out some popular shops online for your gift shopping goals. By making online orders, you can avoid the risk of the product going out of stock. Also, ordering gifts online can also save you time in wrapping your gifts in advance.
- Watch out for sales: If you’re looking for gifts for Christmas, get the most out of pre-Christmas sales. For example, you can check out sale items during Black Friday. If some of the discounted products are in your list, buy them to save some money.
Starting early can prevent you from ending up shopping last minute. With the tips mentioned above, you can get your gifts ready this year without any hassle.
Make your gifts
While those of you who don’t consider yourselves very arty or craftsy are probably already skipping over this sentence, hold on a second. Making gifts doesn’t have to be an experience of getting glue everywhere and spilling paint, in fact you can easily make a gift that doesn’t involve paint or glue at all.
You could try baking some special treats, or teach yourself to knit (it’s a lot more fun than it looks).
If you’re looking for Christmas gifts, you could try making a family Christmas Eve box. It can be a perfect gift for your family members of all ages during the festive season because it can be filled it with a variety of goodies. For example, if you’re making a box for your little one, you can fill it with some family treats, Christmas storybook, and other kids’ stuff.
With this gift-making idea, you’ll save money, produce something truly unique, and potentially pick up a little hobby for the winter months.
Go to a farmers market
If you want to support local artists and get a gift that’s unique and special, try going to a local market. You’ll find all sorts of things that you’d never expect, and can possibly even ask the seller if they’d make you a personalised version.
Again, these kinds of items are likely to sell out early, so it’s important to get going as soon as you can. You’ll likely find clothing, jewellery and pottery stalls, all with gorgeous and unique creations.
Try getting a personalised gift
A great gift hack is to get someone a personalised gift. That way, no matter what you get, it will have a personal touch that directly connects it to the recipient. There are a variety of online stores available, many of which allow you to engrave your gift or add a little personalised message.
Lots of these stores have different sections, where you can find things like wallets, wine glasses and personalised Christmas gift ideas for wives, husbands, or all the family. This makes finding the right gift even easier, as someone has already done a lot of the work pulling them all together in one place.
Whatever you do this year, remember this: start early, and don’t get carried away. With enough time and a little bit of decisiveness, the gift shopping process can be incredibly easy, dare I say it, even enjoyable.
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