Unfortunately, I'm the opposite :). Usually I wait too long to start shopping. I'm very lazy when it comes to holidays.... :/ Well, happy belated new year's to everybody!

I definitely shop for Christmas gifts all year long. If I see something appropriate on sale I will buy it.

So for for Christmas 2017 I have my 3 sisters' gifts and their husbands bought, my great-niece's and my sister-in-law's.

I also have my sister's birthday gift bought (her birthday is in September).

I don't have them wrapped yet, only because they're easier to store unwrapped. But they will be wrapped and delivered by this summer. I love being way ahead of the game, it lets me relax more during the busy Christmas season!

If I see something special, I'll buy it, but I don't go looking. My crew has ever changing tastes and sizes. I have to be careful about buying ahead.

How would it work if the person wants to return? Stores are getting stricter with their return policies.

This year I did a lot of online shopping, but at stores that were easy to go to to return in person.

Casey, it true. The holidays get so stressful. To have gifts out of the way certainly makes things easier.

Mom was the best year-long shopper. Of course she'd forget what all she bought, it was all stored in her closet in bags, etc. One year hubby got 12 golf shirts! He wears those 99% of the time, and she could score the nicest ones on sale.

If I see something and its a great price I'll get it, but I hate doing that since I would give it to the person early.

I do shop early and all year long. If I see something I think would be a good gift, I purchase it.

My yearly goal is to have Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving so I can enjoy the holiday season.

I also love hitting all the clearance toys that they price low to move in early/mid fall to clear room for the current seasons "hottest" toys.

I try to always have a few good gifts for boys and girls on hand for the inevitable last minute birthday invitations to a classmates birthday party.

I always keep an eye out for good gifts. It's great to find things on sale. I already have some children's gifts for 2017, one auntie's gift and one friend's gift.

Eld6161, I don't worry about the recipient's ability to return my gift as most stores won't take things back without a gift receipt anyway. I figure if the recipient can't use the item, they can pass it on to someone who will use it. I listen very carefully to people's expressed desires and choose my gifts accordingly.

OhMyGosh, How can you? I get so excited to find a 'perfect gift' that I can't wait to gift it! Plus, OhMy, the ones I have put away and totally forgot about... or decided it wasn't a great 'find' and forgot about it...funny that way! Also, recently I purchased three sets of cute kitchen towels....RED.... meaning for the other two sets as gifts. HaH....I never use them, because they have to be washed with other 'like' colors....Who washes two RED towels alone, or wants to put them in with blue jeans (don't really wear them) to wash them. They lay in the drawer or the laundry room floor every week as I seek the proper load to include them in.Two packages of cute, bright RED towels will probably be in my estate sale and people will be so surprised to see them there. My "Cat in the Hat" project!

When the kids were little, I especially kept alert to any good items for their Christmas stockings all year long. I had crocheted red, green and white granny square stockings when they were little. But they held so much that stocking fillings could be quite expensive. So I looked for close outs and neat things all year. I also learned not to do stockings Christmas morning right before the tree gifts as they were promptly ignored after all my work because tree gifts were even more exciting. So I changed stocking opening to Christmas Eve after baths. The kids still remember our Christmas Eves as special because of the stockings. And they had no idea of not matching up with the timeline of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

I don't shop early, but I wish I did! Maybe this year if I see something, I will go ahead and buy it. I need to buy my sister a birthday present, but I have until Wednesday since she is flying in for a funeral.

I started keeping a small notebook close by, and when talking with folks, often they mention likes and dislikes and I make a small note about it. I found that my nieces hubs loves Stetson cologne, but not the after shave .

Also my grandson likes to cook, so I have a couple of cookbooks for him. When he matures a bit more, I will gift him with a cookbook filled with family and friends recipes I am working on.. I am including a bit of history or a little story about each recipe and where I got it to begin with. like my grandma's pierogis and home made kielbasa, etc. I am including a photo of the person as well, if I have one.

Buying like this makes it so much more enjoyable instead of fighting the crowds during the Holiday season.

I really like the cookbook that you are putting together with stories (family history) and photos. I would really treasure that as a gift.

Sheilajoyce, I love your tradition of opening stockings on Christmas eve. I don't have any kids but my sister's tradition with her two was to open one gift Christmas Eve and it somehow always magically turned out to be new Christmas pyjamas that they went to bed in that night, LOL. The "kids" (now 22 and 25) still "expect" new pyjamas to open on Christmas Eve.

I only shop for the grand kids. Their birthdays fall in late spring and summer. so anything special I found now would be for their birthday and anything after the birthday would be for Xmas.

But right now they are growing like weeds so I just buy clothing gifts as they need them. They are both so very young that a toy bought today may not be age or developmentally appropriate by Xmas. At age 2.5 and 4.5 they have already outgrown many of their toddler type preschool toys. They are also physically too big for many things other children their age can play with. They prefer open ended imaginative play, are starting into games and love to craft. But kids are fickle. By next Xmas who knows. This is the first Xmas that grand daughter asked for any specific gifts. She wanted a Barbie hair styling head and a watch.

with 7 girls and 2 boys, it's nearly impossible...

PK, I started it about 10 years ago, and the cookbook is really a continual work in progress as our family grows. It's relaxing to me and Lord only knows I need relaxing after all the carp involved in the election. I am soooooo glad it's over and we can go on with our lives.

I only have 1 daughter, but Tobey has 2 kids, and a scad of grands and step grands too. I have 2 grands. Plus we are super close to my brother's family as well.

We blended our Christmas traditions and had both Christmas Eve 'tree' gifts and Christmas Day stockings. :) My adult children still want their treat filled stockings even though DD and SIL are not here to open them with us anymore. They have Christmas Eve with us and Christmas Day with their in laws.

I shop starting in September. And buy a lot from craft fairs.

if i see something i like for a gift throughout the year at a good price, i buy it!! makes my life so much easier!!

My in-laws travel a good bit in their RV, usually several months at a time. She always picks up gifts from their travels. It's funny on Christmas day, because as soon as one guy unwraps, say, a hat from Alaska, the other three guys all know that they'll get one, too. She likes to keep things even. :)

We buy so few gifts any more, mostly just for the nieces and nephew, that I'm usually shopping on 12/23. I have to, if I buy it much earlier they'll out grow it!

Funny story from my youth. My mother bought me a necklace, and later earrings to go with it. She told me that she had put the earrings away and lost them. I couldn't tell her, but I knew that they were in Dad's sock drawer, because I had been putting up laundry and saw them. I never did get those earrings, no idea what she finally did with them.