Christmas in August

Christmas 2008 is coming in just 141 days, 3 hours, 22 Minutes and 4 Seconds...and I am already DONE shopping for the boys. I've also finished shopping for 8 days of Hanukkah presents for each of them, as well as new Lightning McQueen stockings and the goodies to fill them. Truly, it's been a worry of mine that with two crazy boys underfoot I was never going to get all of my holiday shopping done this year. When you add up how many presents I have to buy between the boys dual Christmas/Hanukkah and all the rest of my and Mitch's families it's crazy (and a little overwhelming!). We decided in January that we should start holiday shopping right away so that we could spread the cost out over the months, and in hopes that it would give us more time to find some really cool things at good sales and deals. I never actually thought that I would be done with the boys in August though! I still have a zillion family members to shop for, but at least I can relax a little bit and switch my focus to shopping more for the adults and less for the kids right during the holiday crunch time. Oh, and we still want to get them a really cool bigger present from the Jolly Old Guy in Red, but clearly we still have lots of time for that.

But, even better than the fact that the boy's shopping is mostly done is this - I've spent less than $50 out-of-pocket on all of their presents (and they're getting some cool stuff too!)! I've gotten lucky and stumbled across some really incredible deals, but over the past couple of years I've also gotten pretty good at locating awesome sales and super discounts. So, I thought I'd blog about the best-of-the-best deals that I thought some of you might want to know about too (come on, you ALL know how you pester me to tell you how and where I find such crazy deals!). The blog is called "Bargain Hunting Mama," and a link can be found in that nifty little box at the top of this page (or go to www.bargainhuntingmama.blogspot.com). Hopefully you'll enjoy my little obsession, erm, hobby (and save yourself some pennies too!)!