How We Handle Filling Our Stockings

Inspired by Jenn, who has been blogging about Christmas on the cheap, it suddenly occurs to me that we have a fabulous tradition that must be shared with as many people as possible:

Drawing Names For Stockings

This is for when the kids are all old enough to start helping with the shopping, although we started before the youngest was in elementary school. Just match the teams up carefully, so nobody is shopping with someone who is shopping for them.

Draw names from a hat and form shopping teams. Each person gets a $10 bill; that is all that may be spent on the entire contents of the stocking for the person they are shopping for. Any change left is also put into the stocking. Everyone shops at the same time, at the same store, carefully avoiding one another, of course. We choose Fred Meyer, they have a wide range of items including clothing and groceries.

Thankfully I remembered this just in time for Frugal Friday at Biblical Womanhood!