I’ve just discovered I’m a ‘below average’ Christmas spender.
I was killing some time tonight reading at a forum I frequent and ran across an article about Christmas spending. According to Gallup, the average American predicts they will spend $714 on Christmas gifts this year. From looking at their chart, apparently I’ve always been below average. WAY below. WTF?
Damn. All those years I thought I was doing good.
Being a single mother with four kids, I seldom bought anything other than necessities during the year and averaged spending maybe $25-$30 for each on their birthdays. So…I splurged at Christmas (or so I thought).
When they were smaller, I spent around $50 – $75 each. As they got older and their *toys* got a bit more expensive, I bumped up my spending to roughly $100 – $125 per kid. A couple of years ago, things were going pretty good so I went all out and spent almost $150 each. That year was proclaimed “The best Christmas ever”.
Little did they know, even the “best year ever” we didn’t quite make it to average. Cheated again. Just one more thing they can add to a long list of things to tell their shrinks some day.
[sigh]
Guess I better get busy and clear off the mantle to make room for my latest “Mother of the Year (NOT)” award. :)
Those “toys” do get expensive when they get older. They end up hardly having anything to open up on Christmas morning, so I always get them socks. You can lump me into the below average mom group, we feed them almost three times a day, what the hell else to they expect? ;-)