Ever wish you had the perfect Christmas gift checklist?
Even if you’re a festive person who loves gift-giving at Christmas time, shopping for gifts can be surprisingly overwhelming.
There’s the list-making. The idea-brainstorming. The selecting of a concept for each person, the research, the links (so many links!), the store runs, the budget, the wrapping. Hold on, I need to take a deep breath here before I continue. I’m holding in my mind the image of a sugar cookie…
Okay. The other thing is, if you’re in a committed relationship, you don’t want to do all that work yourself. You should be splitting it with your partner. Don’t let them off the hook just because you’re more organized or spend more time shopping in general. If your gift recipient list is more than a person or two, and especially if you have children, then you need to think of Christmas shopping as a shared project between you and your partner, with individuals responsible for each task.
Last year, when the thought of all the Christmas gifts we had to buy made my head spin, I put together this Christmas gift checklist template in Notion to share with my husband. It’s helped me feel sane while finding the perfect gifts, and sped up our shopping process. I think you’ll love it, too.
How to use the Christmas gift checklist to streamline your holiday shopping
Make your Christmas gift tracker
First, make your copy of the Christmas shopping list and budget Notion template. Take a minute to poke around, and when you’re ready, click the button to clear the template of sample data. (By the way, most of that was pulled from my actual shopping list from last year. I still have no idea what to get my dad.)
Next, in the “Recipients” section, make a row for each person you want to get a gift for. Make sure to include any Secret Santa or other gift exchanges you’re participating in.
Brainstorm ideas
Now it’s time to brainstorm gift ideas. If you’re working with a partner, you may want to have a little brainstorming session together. Still in the Recipients section, jot down any ideas you already have for this person.
If you find yourself stuck, scroll to the bottom of the template, where you’ll find the AI gift assistant. For any one of your gift recipients, fill in as much detail as you can in the columns for years old, what that person does for fun – such as ostrich racing, fridgescaping, questing for lost treasure, fighting demons, whatever – and other things that person likes, such as kitschy hand warmers or antique suitcases or goblin-core aesthetic.
When ready, click into the “AI gift ideas” column for that person and press “update” or the magic wand icon. Incidentally, AI suggests that the hypothetical person we just created might like a vintage-style antique suitcase filled with treasure-hunting gear, a personalized ostrich racing jersey, or a DIY fridgescaping kit with unique magnets and decorations. Not bad.
Shop, wrap, and track
When you’re ready, move down to the Full Christmas Shopping List section. Add a row for each gift you plan to purchase. You can include links if that’s helpful. For many people on my list, this means just one row, but my kids and husband, and sometimes my parents, will get multiple gifts from us. (Of course, I don’t put exactly what I got for my husband in our shared template. That would ruin the surprise! But I do put the dollar amount.)
I find it most realistic to add a budget for each gift at this stage. Once I’ve done that, I check the summary at the top of the page to see where the total budget summary is at. If it’s under what I earmarked, great! If it’s over that amount, I can adjust at a person or gift level – or even remove more distant recipients – until the estimate matches a dollar amount I’m comfortable spending.
If you’re splitting shopping with a partner, make sure you both have access to the Notion page, then assign a person for each row in the “who’s buying?” column. The cool thing about this is that you now have a customized “My Shopping List” and “My Wrapping List” when you scroll down that only shows the tasks you’re responsible for. Once you purchase something, it moves from the shopping list to the wrapping list. Once it’s wrapped, it won’t show in these list views.
Once a gift is purchased, check the box. Yay! Add how much you spent in the next column. Above in the summary, the total spent number will update.
Once you wrap a gift, check that off, too. Not only does this give a sense of accomplishment, but it can help you remember what’s in those wrapped gifts, too.
Feeling like Buddy the Elf yet?
Your whole to-do list
By the way – if you’re looking for a template to help with your to-do list for the entire Christmas season, I made one of those, too.
Christmas Shopping FAQs
When to start Christmas shopping?
Most likely, if you’re reading this, the correct answer is “now”. Many pro Christmas shoppers recommend keeping an eye out for gifts throughout the year, so you can spread out the tasks and spending, have a better chance of finding the perfect gift, and find things on sale. I wouldn’t recommend doing this for your main gifts for children, whose tastes (and clothing sizes) can change wildly within a single year, but you can still include evergreen items like art supplies in your earlier shopping for kids.
The most popular time to start shopping if you have a large list is in October. Then you can wrap things up with Black Friday sales, and not worry about the delayed shipping times in December that we’ve seen the past few years. You also avoid having all those purchases hit your bank account at once.
How to start Christmas shopping?
Short answer: use the template outlined in this post! Longer answer: make a list of every recipient you want to give to. Include your immediate family, gift exchanges or white elephants you’ll take part in, any extended family or friends you’d like to gift to, and think back to anyone you received gifts from last year that you’d like to include. Also consider gifts or gift cards for teachers, bus drivers, nannies, dog walkers, house cleaners, and hair stylists.
Before you buy anything, jot down all your ideas, and include a budget per person/gift, so you have a plan for how much you’re going to buy and how much you think it will cost before you do anything.
How do you split Christmas shopping with your partner?
I recommend using a digital template that both partners can contribute to for tracking your Christmas shopping, spending, and wrapping. Have a little kickoff session in October where you set a budget together, confirm the list of recipients together, and divvy up who will be in charge of which gifts. Make sure to set a check-in time to review how it’s going around late November or early December.
How will you organize your Christmas shopping this year?
