Have You Finished/Started Your Holiday Shopping?

It is almost time for Christmas and this means that some of us are finishing up our Christmas Shopping, it may also mean that some of us have to start our Christmas Shopping…and soon! There aren’t a lot of people on my Christmas list this year due to my big family fall out last year. However, it is the Holidays and I do still send out Christmas cards to my family members just in order to keep some kind of open communication.

I really enjoy the Holiday Season, I love Christmas decorations and I really love the smell of Pine Trees. However, I am not a huge fan of Christmas Shopping. I love shopping in general and I really love giving gifts to people, but shopping at Christmas is a whole other story.  During the Holidays the malls are always so over-crowded and the sales people definitely lack some holiday cheer from being overworked and underpaid.

Holiday Shopping Online

I prefer to shop online during Christmas, it’s cheaper, there is usually free delivery, and I never have to deal with unhappy sales people.  I enjoy shopping at Barnes & Nobel or Amazon because I can order something for everyone on my short list in one spot.  I can have all of the gifts delivered right to my door, or anyone’s door for that matter.  I like to shop around online to find the best prices possible and then place my order.  Online shopping is great for people who plan ahead and who don’t want the hassle of crowded shopping malls, but unfortunately online shopping is not an option for last minute shoppers.

If you have ever worked in retail sales (like I did) then you have a “special spot” in your heart for Last Minute Shoppers because they are the gift and the curse of the retail sales business.  Last Minute Shoppers are great because they are coming in to the store to spend money, and also because they are on a tight time deadline so they are usually in and out very quickly.  The curse of the Last Minute Shopper is that they are very needy and require a lot of assistance because they are buying gifts for everyone on their list within 24 hours of the Christmas deadline.

Are you a Last Minute Holiday Shopper?

I feel the same way about last minute Christmas shoppers that I do about people who rush into the Bank to make the last minute contributions to their retirement accounts before the deadline…I am not a big fan.  Last Minute Shopping is definitely a personality trait. These people have 365 days of the year to buy gifts, and they know that they have to buy gifts before the deadline because Christmas comes at the exact same time every single year, just like the contribution deadline into our retirement accounts.

Every single year for as long as I have known him my Step Father has been a Last Minute Shopper, but he doesn’t care because he doesn’t consider it to be a bad thing.  My Step Father doesn’t see the point in buying gifts weeks in advance if we can’t open them until December 25^th anyways. He doesn’t wait to buy his Christmas gifts because he is getting better deals closer to Christmas; he waits to buy his Christmas gifts because he just doesn’t see the point in buying gifts that will sit under the Christmas Tree for 3 weeks.

My mother on the other hand decorates her home and wraps her gifts as of December 1^st because she likes her house to be in the Christmas spirit, whereas my Step Father considers Christmas shopping on December 23^rd to be in advance. Every year on the morning of Christmas Eve my Step Father goes out and buys my mother a spa gift card, unless she asks for something else…which she never does.

Photo by Meta

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.