My wife and I have the majority of our kids Christmas presents purchased already. Generally when we're in a store and we see something we know they'd like but don't think we should just get for the hell of it for them. We'll separate, one with the kids and the other goes and get's the item, pays and hides it in the trunk. It then gets stashed in the attic at home until Christmas. It's worked quite well for us for the past few year.

I think we should remain completely oblivious until Nov. 30th.

If I spot stuff on sale and I know of someone who will like it...yup, I buy it.

I also pre-purchase all my stocking stuffers and little gifties for co-workers - you know, the nice little things that aren't very personal, but really add up at the end of the year? I just have a box of general things that folks might like and I dole them out in December. It's also nice to have the box o' goodies on hand for housewarming, forgotten birthday, and "aw, sorry you're having a rough week" gifts.

I think the smart thing to do is split the difference.
Window shop now and get the price of the item and start saving in the meantime.
Then you have the physical money to spend during the season.
This way if the item goes on sale you get a better price -likely- and you get to enjoy the shopping which is part of the seasonal joy and as mentioned in the post, you secure the seasonal return policies.
REMEMBER TO ASK FOR YOUR GIFT RECEIPTS!!!!!!
And finally you get in the habit of saving for the things you want.

Kooky, yeah I know.

@pb5000: Yes, indeed. I love to shop for trinkets when I'm on overseas business trips. This year I got a Vermeer-printed scarf at Schiphol Airport, a glass laser-etched paperweight with Islamic calligraphy in Dubai, a pewter sporran flask in Aberdeen, and some amazing jewelry from a street artist in Berlin. Sometimes I don't even know who they're for, but they all manage to find homes, and the recipients profess to be thrilled.

I'm going to sound like a commercial but check out Bing and ebay. There's a cashback feature for using Bing and the buy it now option. I did a lot of shopping this way last year and got a nice cashback bonus.

I use Google Docs to split everyone I know (that's know, not like - goddamn social conventions) into Gifts and Cards.
If I'm sending cards, then I try to use charity/NGO cards along with a round robin e-card...I don't know if I'll actually follow through with that, the best laid plans etc.
My brother and I are sending my parents to NY for their 30th wedding anniversary in February so their gift will be an envelope stuffed with dollars and plane tickets and the card will say "Mum and Dad, I really hope you know where your passports are, Merry Christmas".
Irelands been hit heavily by the R word (who hasn't, in fairness), so the challenge amongst my friends and I this year is to avoid the Christmas Eve panic, which is when my credit card bleeds the most.
One friend of mine is knitting scarves for her friends and lap blankets for her elderly relatives. I'm making Rocky Road in pretty boxes and other cakes/sweets.
PS - This may have seemed pretty scrooge-y in previous years, but anyone who's in a trade or works in a similar area could seriously save on Christmas by offering freebies or labour - like for instance a friend of mine is a mechanic, and I don't want a gift from him as much as I want him to give my car a quick lookover from his home garage. His eyes lit up when I mentioned it to him. Just a thought :)

This was the first year we had a christmas club account. $100 bucks a month, split over two paychecks, deposited automatically. so $1000 by December with no pain. i am so digging it and will do this every year.

I usually start my Christmas shopping in July or August. I've never really bought anything that was "obsolete" by Christmas. I'm basically done for my sister, half done for one of my brothers, and half-done for my husband.

I tend to shop early because I hate holiday shopping crowds (especially when I still lived in Canada, where bad weather could hit and make driving impossible fast), but I have a rule that no decorations can go up until December 1.

But last year when I went looking to buy some new decorations for the new house in mid-December, everything was picked over, especially my main goal: switching to LEDs. Two weeks before Christmas, Target had two sets of indoor LEDs left, and one didn't match the box (to their credit, when I asked how much it'd be since I couldn't even find what was in the box on the display shelves, they knocked 50% off the box's price so I took the deal because what was in the box was better than what was pictured on it).

And last year, when I went to buy pumpkins for carving a few days before Halloween, there wasn't one to be found in South Austin and we made do with yellow squash.

So apparently if one wishes to do these seasonal things, more and more one is required to do it stupidly early, because everyone else is, and supply can run out!

I like buying things that aren't confined to a trend or a holiday. That's how you ensure that what you buy will collect dust in the attic. Gloves and winter-weather stuff is different. But Christmas-themed stuff just never gets used for more than a month or so, so I don't do it.

My in-laws and my parents are so hard to shop for. They have the money to buy whatever they want, whenever they want. But sometimes they'll forget they want it, so I make a mental note of everything for later. If it's something like, "I wish my blender worked better," that might be something I could consider for Christmas.

@kaceetheconsumer: I will ONLY buy Christmas decorations after Christmas because of the price drops. I picked up 50 count, mini light strands for 30 cents a box at Wal-Mart on New Year's Day. I also bought a 7.5 foot artificial Christmas tree for $40 at Home Depot on that same day. Its really nice and originally retailed for $300. I'm not overly picky; Christmas when I was a kid was full of yard sale and homemade decorations so my mish-mash of stuff brings back fond memories.

With two kids and a lot of family and my wife's affinity towards hosting Christmas parties we finally setup a Christmas savings account at the beginning of 2008, after having a rough Christmas of '07. $40 every two weeks went into that account so we had over $900 come December, it worked out so well we bumped it up to $50 every two weeks, so we'll have close to $1200 come December.

That goes a long way for us since we do most of our shopping online and last year, for the first year ever, my wife and I braved Black Friday, it wasn't that bad and we got nearly everything we wanted to get for the kids for about $100, plus I got a really nice fake Christmas tree for $50 at Home Depot, so that is one expense we won't be having this year. I think we might even do the Black Friday thing again this year (we have a Target and a Home Depot across the street from each other just a couple miles from our house), a few hours in the morning split between those two stores and we should be done with 95% of our shopping, all at great prices.

@pb5000: Oh man.. not the trunk and the attic.. I hope your kids are really little because if they're above say.. age 8 they've probably figured out those hiding places by now.

My mom used to hide stuff in both places and my brother and I knew it.. he would find the stuff and then "make" me go look at it too.. (Big brothers can make you do anything.)

They also know to look in the master bedroom closit.

Good luck to you! It only gets harder to hide things from kids.

@Duckula22: I say put it off til December 24th.

I think it would be a good idea to start early, but a lot of products aren't out until October/November and stores only have a very limited return period these days. Do you want to be the one to give a christmas gift without a receipt in this day and age, I think not!

A good plan for those items you think will run out would be to purchase them early, but if you see them on sale later, you can re-buy it and then return the previous one. This way you ensure that you have that much-desired item even if the supply runs low and it cannot be found anywhere.

Check the return policy of the store you are buying from, if you think the item is something that might break or might be broken out of the box then make sure you buy within the Christmas shopping period and return period. Don't buy these types of gifts in the middle of summer.

Give cash instead of Visa gift cards. For some reason we are always the recipient of a Visa gift card which I just don't understand. The person giving it is paying $5 for the privilage of giving you something that has restrictions, fees and sometimes cannot even be used everywhere. Some of these gift cards carry outrageous fees that are deducted upon each transaction. Please people, don't give these things as gifts!!! If you must give a gift card, give a store gift card or look for a mall gift card which can be used at any store in the mall.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: yeah, they are young and therefore still oblivious. We know it won't last forever, but take advantage while we can.

Why should you even give gifts on Christmas anyway or is that in bit only in the retail version of the Bible?

One we limit gift giving to a small number, basically gifts go to kids and that is about it (we have to buy a gift for Mr. Sam's Mom otherwise she will have hurt feelings, but we've slowly come to agreements with most of the adult family that we do not need to exchange gifts).

Two, we save for holiday related expenses year round, we sock away a small amount each month for our holiday budget (which includes gifts, holiday cards and mailing expenses, office/work gifts, neighbor gifts [cookies/breads], donations, parties, etc.).

Three, I do pick up gifts year round but only if I see something that is perfect for someone during my travels and half the time I give the gift before Holiday time, but if not I save it and give it at Christmas.

Four, early November, we sit down and go over our budget and fine tune our holiday spending plan.

Fifth, if we run out of budgeted money we stop spending, no way do we go into debt for holiday gift giving or other holiday expenses.

January, we go over our holiday spending plan and increase or decrease depending on how we did in December and we set up our automatic savings plan.

@pb5000: Just wait until they hit the growth spurt, and can suddenly and magically see to the back of the highest shelf.

Then you're going to need to rent a storage unit to store your gifts.

@Vandelay Import Export: Why do you hate Christmas, and by extension, joy and holiday magic?

End of summer/start of fall clearance for children's toys helps if you concentrate on getting good deals on the highest end toys of a series- ie the ones too expensive to sell well originally. Some stores blow out the toys quicker than others (walmart is alot faster than Kmart).

I just purchased a Transformers truck/dvd/comic book box set that was originally $69.99, then marked down to the mid-$50 range and then discounted so that I got it for $42.XX. This will be a "big" present for a 6 1/2 year old 1st grader. I scored three scale military tanks for a 9 year old fourth grade boy that were originally around $27.xx each for about $12.xx each or less than half.

Pretty soon the shelves will be too loaded with the seasons toys. In the past I did ok also buying after Christmas but stores may keep inventories lower now which will limit those deals to be found now...

@msquier: That's what I used to do, but now the stores hardly have anything and each year more and more don't even have a discounted section. They're buying inventory closer to the margins to avoid having to sell it off, I think.

Home made decorations are still the best, though. :)

@the_deliverator:

Doesn't the "pain" come from realizing you let someone else collect your interest?

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: yeah the bedroom closet was always mom's hiding place for presents whether from santa or herself. even now she hides presents in the 3rd floor loft, which would be fine except i'm living here now. and she forgets she bought stuff.

@pecan 3.14159265: Because some of us celebrate Festivus.

A gift has been made in your name to the Human Fund. Money for people!

@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsAGreasyRockAndRoller: You will probably spend more if you go out and buy everything on the last day, not to mention everything you want will be gone.

@RecordStoreToughGuy_IsNeckDeepInCrisis:

Dec 26, for me. :) I just hope I can convince the my little girl that waiting an extra day is very worth it (Canada's verison of black friday is on Boxing Day, the 26th of Dec).

Up to them, I suppose. Once she's old enough, I'll let her decide (before then, yeah, on xmas day) when she wants her xmas money spent.

We convert to Aztecs on the first of December. Sacrifice one kid (we draw lots) sometime around the middle of the month and convert back on December 31. Saves a fortune in Christmas presents and we're back in time for New Years. As we run out of kids, we'll have to find something else to do. Maybe ask Octomom to join our group.

@the_deliverator: I have one of those too, and I'll never go back.

This would not help the economy, but I say why buy presents? That's not the purpose of Christmas anyways.

I start as soon as the Christmas Clearance pops up. I get certain things that I know my kids will want or could use in another year, or a few months with their birthdays so close afterward.

I get paper when it is dirt cheap, and just about anything else that is useful.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: my mom managed for a few years to hide things at the childless neighbor's house.

@treimel: Every Christmas Club account I've seen earns interest for the customer. Not a lot but then you're not getting a lot of interest from normal savings accounts either.