Yup. I'm one of them.
The people who start holiday shopping riduluously early. Technically, I start the day after Christmas with phenomenal sales on wrapping paper, gift bags, and the occasional chotchkee. It is sick and I thought about joining shopper anonymous. But then I realized it could be worse. I could be paying full price. Nooooooooo! Not that!
So I continue sale shopping all year long for cool items. Gymboree, Children's Place, and Land's End have great clearance sales by the middle of the seasons. It is a great way to stock up on the next size up on good quality clothing. Oriental trading post has competitively priced craft items to make your own ornaments. If you are really good, each week you can go to Michael's, Joann Fabrics, or AC Moore to take advantage of their 40-50% off coupons to stock up on frames for those kiddie family pictures and other random knick knacks.
What I have experienced though while zenning out on Internet sale shopping is the "oh shitake" factor when I have realized I have gone over my budget or that I have lost track of what I have stored in my gift closet. It does happen. But those are gifts and I will eventually use them for my umpteen nieces and nephews and the inevitable school friends' birthday parties. But this year I might take a new approach and place the cash budgetEd and resulting receipts for each person into an accordion filer. That way I will only spend what I have allotted for them. We will see if that works.
Regardless, I find Chrismakwanzakkah shopping really comes down to a few things: keeping an eye on sales, remembering whey you have already purchased, and sticking to a budget.
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