Siena's the wiz in our house, when it comes to all the organization involved with gift-giving.

It can get kind of crazy, since we have a bunch of gifts that need to be mailed. 📦

But that’s how a lot of us live these days, in such a mobile society, right?

In this episode, we get all OCD about how the gift-giving gets done (somehow!)

…here are…NOTES!

“Empath” • We mentioned that Siena’s an empath. Here’s a link to another episode, where we talk about that, specifically.

Now on to the geeky gift stuff!

Organization

Spreadsheet

We use a spreadsheet to plan and keep records of…

WHO we’re giving gifts to
Whether we’ll need to MAIL their gift
What KIND/CATEGORY of gift we’ll be giving each person. Here are our categories:
- Food: Like a brownie mix, or holiday cookies in a box, etc. We get most of these kinds of gifts from Trader Joe’s, because our recipients love Trader Joe’s. (There are no Trader Joe’s in Hawaii.)
- Tradition: For predictable gifts given to certain people each year, like a tradition between us and the recipient.
- Gift Card: Some people love getting a gift card (Toast does). Some people not so much. You just have to know what your recipient would appreciate.
- Custom: These are gifts where we’ll search for something unique for the recipient, and we could get it from anywhere between a craft fair or Amazon
WHAT specifically, we’re getting/or already got for them
- This helps us know whether we already got a person a gift, because if we shop too early and don’t write it down, we’ll forget!
- It also shows us what we got for people in previous years, which can come in handy. (Don’t get them a butter bell if you already got them a butter bell.)
What STORE you’ll shop at, for them
- Since we get a lot of our gifts from particular stores (Trader Joe’s, and alas, Amazon), this helps us plan more efficient and focused shopping trips, or online shopping sessions, as the case may be.

Put the spreadsheet on the phone

Siena has the spreadsheet on her phone, so even if we spontaneously and totally by accident, happen to see a potential gift for someone in a store, she can consult or update the list.

So geeky right? We told you!

Two More “Gifty” Thoughts

Perishable Gifts

These can involve a lot of advanced planning, as Siena’s Pizza Basket 🍕story taught her, since, well, they’re perishable. If you’re going to do it, think about the logistics. Will you have enough room in your refrigerator? Will you have enough time, energy, and advance notice for any needed preparation? Or, maybe just don’t do perishables. 🤭 Unless, of course, you have too much time on your hands, and you really really love giving perishables.

Hostess/Host Gifts

When attending a party at someone’s house, make sure your hostess gift doesn’t create extra work for the host to do during the event, since they’ll already have a lot to do. A gift that’s meant to be enjoyed later is great (a brownie mix meant for later, or soap, or a candle) or even a gift for their pet is nice, too. 🐶

We hope you enjoyed our Geeky Gift-Giving thoughts!

If you have any gift-giving thoughts to share…that’s what the comments are for! 😁

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31 Gift-Giving Geek Out (How We Organize)