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As you get older, Christmas becomes more challenging. No, I’m not being a Scrooge – it’s still really fun, it’s just harder to buy presents for people. If you have kids, it’s easy to buy for them as they give you a list the length of a roll of toilet paper! It’s your adult friends and siblings that are harder to buy for, and it’s difficult to figure out what you want from them.
In the end, you basically give each other money – which is fine, but boring! So, why don’t you do things differently this year? Instead of the traditional gift exchanges, here are a few fun ideas to give Christmas presents to your friends and family:
Secret Santa
It’s not a new idea, but it’s certainly a good one. Secret Santa is great as you basically only have to buy for one person. Get your siblings or friends together and agree to set a Secret Santa up. You can use a site like Elfster to organize everything for you. Websites like this will email all the participants with the name of their chosen person. Then, you all go off and buy gifts, congregating together to open them up. It can be really funny as you might get joke gifts and there’s just more togetherness. Plus, you definitely have an element of surprise as nobody knows who’s buying for who.
A Random Gift Generator
I love this idea if you want to have some serious fun this Christmas. You’ve all got to agree to take part in this, or else it isn’t fair. Basically, instead of going out and looking for gifts, you all use a random gift generator. For me, this works best in small friend groups or with your siblings. You use a generator to pick out a random gift idea for someone, then go out and buy it. No matter how crazy it is, you have to buy that gift! It will make for some hilarious reactions on Christmas Day – or, you might get lucky and randomly choose a gift they wanted. Either way, the suspense and randomness add some fun to proceedings.
Tiny Budget
The final idea is excellent if you want to save money on gifts! Effectively, you set a tiny budget for the gifts. When I say tiny, I mean really limited – like $10 max for all the gifts! Suddenly, gift buying becomes a challenge. You have to try and find cool gifts that fit within your limited budget, so it forces you to think outside the box and be creative. Again, when you exchange gifts, there’s an element of excitement as you want to see what the other person managed with such a small budget.
The whole point of these ideas is to show you how to mix things up this Christmas. If you find it hard buying gifts for certain people, suggest one of these ideas instead. Or, take things another step further and combine some of the ideas together. For example, run a Secret Santa with a tiny budget or using a random gift generator!
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