Christmas on a budget

People to buy for this year: 24 (including our 3 kids and each other)

Budget: $500.00 

Can it be done? 

"SURE!", I said at the start of the year when we decided to set money aside each pay period for Christmas savings. Over the past 4 years we've spent exactly double that each Christmas but I was blithely optimistic that I could cut that in half with a little frugality. 

Of course we counted the 3 paychecks in December into our budgeting equation, all of which come AFTER my black Friday shopping last week (one is even after Christmas - oops), so I was not expecting to finish my shopping that day. Nor was I expecting to only get 10 people bought for, which is what happened, using all of the money we'd saved so far. 

And with that the Christmas budget is down the toilet. 

Well, I say we get an A for effort as far as actually saving all year, right? I mean, that was a first! And I only bought one present for myself while out all day last Friday, which is a vast improvement from years past, so really I feel quite accomplished!

The hardest part was breaking the news to Russell, which occurred at an untimely moment at the dinner table last night. I'm not quite sure how I even let that happen but thankfully the kids were all present so no voices were raised, and after they heard that half of the budget had gone towards them they were clearly on my side of the argument and Russell had nothing left to say except that he was going to spank all of us (or something to that effect) and we all laughed, and then I told the kids that I wasn't afraid of him and gave Russ a wink wink. 

Disaster averted. 

Bottom line: My husband is a SAINT sometimes, and I love him! Also, does anyone know of a .22 rifle (Russ's single Christmas wish) for sale for .99 cents? :)