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its never too early to start planning for christmas:D

gets me in a happy mood when i think about it

Anyone have any suggestions on what gifts to give to people that you're meeting for the first time? This year I'm going to be spending Christmas with my boyfriend's family and I have only met his parents and over the holidays EVERYONE will be there. 

What would gifts would you recommend giving to people that you don't really know? I still want them to be thoughtful but not anything that's too general or run of the mill.

Any suggestions?

I am sure that you have done this..... but have you checked with your boyfriend to be sure that it is customary to give gifts to everyone. I understand that some families do not give gifts to the adults. Others do something.... like Secret Santa, pull names from a hat and then give gifts only to that person, only give gifts to people that do not have children yet, some always give to the kids, do no gifts at all.

Like I stated earlier, I am sure that you have already asked about costumes. From what I have heard, some families are offended if you do not obey their beliefs. Or some families like ours are not offended, we change the rules each year. LOL

Just a suggestion, if you are giving gifts to the whole family, talk to boyfriend and find out 5 or 6 things that they like to do, their hobbies, music, etc... Then make something by hand, that would match their interesting thing that you learned from boyfriend. (This will also help to break the ice, you would know something about them, and can ask them to explain it to you in more detail)

Or you can take the thing that you learned about them and then do something weird and off the wall. Something that may never have happened to them before. While thinking of all the things that you learned about them, and see if their is a Charity that you could donate to in their name. Get a fancy Christmas card, (Something Musical, that fits their musical taste and then put the certificate where money was donated in their name on it.

You could have a star named after them, It would come with a certificate with the name of the star, and it's location. If they have a scope, they could look it up, or they could look it up on the Internet.

It is hard to give a lot of suggestions, as there is little information about who they "ARE", how much you want to spend, what are traditions of the family etc.... I will keep thinking......

Some families give white elephant gifts. Each year they have to give something that they have gotten as a gift before and then re-gift.

Steal a cute photo of the family together. Get it enlarged, and framed.

Still thinking....

Not in my book!

Target already has some Christmas decorations out and the radio station here in L.A., KOST, starts playing Christmas music right around Thanksgiving. :D

never to early to start planning for christmas 

I know some who start right after Christmas with all the sales.

never to early to start..

Yep never to early

I don't think its too early to start Christmas...with the gifts to be purchased, the decorations and things for the house....never too early to get it all ready, just don't have the house decorated and ready to go in November! lol

To me it gets irritating when people bring out Christmas stuff too early. When I worked at Quizno's, they sent us a Christmas music CD to be played in the store on Nov 1st. By the time Christmas came around we were so sick of it that employees were playing their own music CD's instead. I hated Christmas music that year!

Also, I work inside of Petsmart and I noticed that they brought out all of their Christmas stuff on Halloween.

No especially for gifts!  I shop year round so once Thanksgiving comes along I am all done.

NO! its never to early! I mean when you get your xmas shopping done and out of the way, you get the entire time to relax, while others are pushing and shoving in the malls. you can sit back and relax with a nice cup of hot chocolate by the fire!

I love shopping in the crowds the day after Thanksgiving. I do shop before hand... mostly on the internet... but it is tradition to start the Christmas holiday by going shopping at 4am on black friday. The kids have always thought mom and dad were going on a date! hehehe

I have to admit this year I ain't bought a thing yet for christmas I gotta get busy busy busy.

I have 6 six and 2 grandkids... not to mention our other family members... so we have a lot to shop for. I always give to my 2 nephews because they live by me and they are like my kids. My other sisters... I just give family gifts. On my hubbys side there are a ton of people so we do a little goodie bag for each kid (theres a bunch of kids) and we do a gift exchange kind of thing where we all bring (whoever wants to participate) a $20-$25 gift and then draw numbers and each person picks a gift. The next person can take that gift just opened or they can pick a new one. It's fun to do and helps keep the christmas budget down.