Christmas Planner & Gift Tracker

Three lists that belong together

A gift tracker at the top — who, what, how much, and a tick for bought. A card list beside it. A to-do checklist at the foot. Twelve gift rows by default, and the budget column can be set to pounds, to dollars, to euros.

The budget column is the useful one

Christmas overspending is rarely one extravagant present. It is twenty entirely reasonable ones bought over six weeks with no running total kept anywhere.

Write a figure against each name before you buy anything, add them up, and decide whether that number is acceptable in October rather than in January. The tracker then does the rest of the work: what is already bought, what is still outstanding, and how much of the budget is left to spend it with.

Set a per-person figure and say it out loud to the adults involved. Most families are relieved when somebody suggests spending less, and nobody wants to be the first to say it.

Ideas as they occur

Fill in the gift idea column across the year, not in December.

The good present is almost always something mentioned in passing in June, and it is lost by November unless it was written down. A sheet that starts collecting ideas early produces better presents and a considerably calmer month, and it is the single change that most improves Christmas shopping.

The card list

Its own section. Cards and presents go to different people, and posting is a deadline rather than a task.

Check the last posting dates — they move each year, and the international ones are much earlier than people expect. Write the date at the top of the section and work backwards from it.

The to-do checklist wants dates on it

Order the turkey. Book the car in. Buy the thing that always sells out. Sort out who is hosting.

Most December failures are lead-time failures rather than effort failures, and they are invisible until the week they bite. Put a deadline against anything that has to be ordered, or booked, or posted. The rest can be improvised.

Print it in November

Stick it up somewhere everyone can see. A tracker in a drawer collects no gift ideas from anybody else in the house, which is half of what it is for.

Related: the Thanksgiving / Easter / Halloween planner for the other occasions, and the sinking funds tracker if the goal is to have the money ready before December arrives.