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I thought I was pretty controlled last year, but then I still noticed my oldest had major gift fatigue. My mom was visiting, so she brought 2 presents and we gave 4. All small things--2 of the gifts from us were books that I just couldn't get in one package.

That seems modest, but LO 1 was totally done after opening her 2nd and 3rd present. She didn't want to open more and just wanted to play with what she'd already opened. We had to coax and cajole her into opening the rest and I realized that she just doesn't need or want that much at her age. LO2 is only 15 months and I know she still won't care about anything she gets anyway.

So this year, we are getting the girls their 1 big gift--the play kitchen. And asking grandparents to get some play food and plates. AND THAT'S IT. Luckily, our parents are very modest gift givers so we don't have to worry about them getting too much.

The thing I'm looking forward most this year is setting up the tree with LO--she keeps talking about the tree and how beautiful it is. She also really enjoyed making a gingerbread house with me last year and listening to Christmas music.

And this year, I want to take the $$ I might typically spend on the girls and host a small holiday party for my mommy friends and their kids. This year more than ever, I'm grateful to have such a great group of women friends in my life and I'd love to end the year with them and their kiddos.

we keep a google spreadsheet and have a budget column and then a spent column, so if we overspend somewhere, we know we should cut somewhere else. I think the trouble is when we get down to the last minute and see something we like, or add someone new to the list.

We are using a Google spreadsheet also to keep track of spending. Since we are having our second baby and we anticipate large medical bills to come during the holidays, we are gifting our parents crafts from the kids and assistance on big home improvement projects instead of an actual present. We also aren't getting each other real gifts- neither of us has gifts as a love language and there isn't anything that we really want. Literally we are getting new pillows for our bed and that's it hahaha. We are doing crafts for toddler friends also- homemade gingerbread play dough with a gingerbread man cookie cutter along with some Christmas cookies.

In an effort to not go overboard for his birthday next week, I ordered everything through one place (Amazon). That way I could fill up my cart and only spend what I was comfortable with. We spend way more when we buy piecemeal at all sorts of places.

Budget for Christmas. Creative resourcing-dipping into events budget for extras.