Christmas Gift-Buying: Your Approach

Now that it's far too late to salvage anything of the mess, and since I'm at work and bored, I idly wonder ... what approach to y'all take to buying gifts for spouses?

We try to set a spending limit, which I routinely break and she does not.  She tends to serve up gifts like a holiday meal: a bigger "entree" gift accompanied by maybe 6-8 "side dish" gifts.  I tend to go buffet-style, loading 3-4 entree gifts on the plate and 4-6 sides.  We don't provide detailed lists (no emails with links to Amazon or The Pink *humid grotto*cat), and we don't buy for ourselves.

A good friend is exactly the opposite: he and his wife each buy their own gifts, with the other's party's knowledge.  Immediate use, no wrapping anything up, no under-the-tree excitement on Christmas morning.  Works for them, but I think it sucks.

We are somewhat a hybrid between the two.  We set a limit which she always destroys buying for me.  I sometimes do too if I get my favorite, the partridge in the pear tree that is so good it covers xmas and bday the following month.  This gift must be in the diamond, emerald, sapphire or lexus category however.

So we buy for each other, generally surprise gifts without lists but we give them whenever we want.  We don't bother wrapping them either.  More like, hey wanna see the present I just got you, who cares if it is dec 21.  Works for us.

Why, you're never there to watch it with all the golfing you do
 

Please tell me it didn't follow last year's light into the bathroom.

Then again ... bubble baths. 

We usually know what we're getting. I have to admit that I love Christmas for the kids. Once in a while we'll be surprised like when I got her an ipod a couple years ago.

This year we finished (after 10 years) the basement and still need some furniture. That was/will be Christmas for us save some stuff Santa will have in our socks.

It doesn't matter how I go about it, I usually *fudge* it up. 

At work, we can give/get $50 R/A's, which are redeemable @ giftcertificates.com.  I usually end up with at least 10 a year, so I save them up, and buy what gifts I know my wife wants, and then give I give her the remainder to spend as she pleases.  She claims this is lazy and doesn't require much thought...

Last year my wife gave me a snow plow for one of the four wheelers, which I thought sucked, as I no longer had an excuse to not clear snow, but I'm the insensitive prick.

What's Christmas??