Christmas in July

Anyone who knows me, knows that Christmas is my favorite holiday.  I love everything about it from the gifts to the decorations, the smell of cinnamon and cookies, family and traditions, the lights, the Christmas tree, everything.  Well, maybe not everything.  In this tight economy, I don't like dropping $500-$1000 on Christmas gifts a few weeks before Christmas.  That last minute shopping stuff is for the birds, and quite frankly, my bank account doesn't handle it well.  I hate having to choose between gifts and bills.

Instead, I prefer to do my holiday shopping early.  Like, REALLY early.  Like, July early.

Every July 1st I start to pester GG and LW for Christmas lists.  I don't expect them to be complete, but I do expect some ideas to come forth to help make shopping a little easier.  I prefer to use these lists as guides to help give me ideas.  Some Christmases I have it all figured out.  I know exactly what I want to get them and other years, I need that time from July to Christmas to figure it out.  Regardless, it's easier to drop $100 bucks here and there over the course of 5 months than it is to drop all that cash all at once.

With the Tweedles, it gets a little more interesting.  Every July, very quietly, Target starts to mark down toys 30-75% off.  They're getting rid of stock to make room for the holidays. They don't make a big "sale" out of it, or advertise it, but if you start taking a look in the isles and on the end caps, you'll start to see their red discount signs. I have no idea if Wal-mart does something similar as our nearest Wal-mart isn't a convenient distance from us.  If they do, can someone post here and let the rest of us know?

Last Thursday, The Hubs and I left The Tweedles with GG and off we went Christmas shopping.  And man did we The Tweedles make out like bandits!

The "boys" section was first in our Target, so the very first thing I found was this Disney Smart Ship Learn & Go ($5.06) for Bug.  It plays learning games for letters, numbers etc.

Then we found this ThunderCats Thunder Tank. (Sweeeeeeet deal at $8.98).

Which went well with the ThunderCats Action Figure Set. ($8.68).  Did you know the ThunderCats were still cool?  Bug and Bunny watch the same cartoons I used to when I was a kid.  Crazy!

Then we found this Cars Action Agent Spy Jet Getaway Set ($11.48).  How cute is this?  Especially for a Cars loving Bug like ours.  I can pretty much quote Cars and Cars II by now.

Then we found this cute Chuck Handy Monster Tow Truck ($4.12) which will go great with the big Chuck truck he got last Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa.

Then we ran across these Fisher Price Little People super hero action figures ($3.74/each).  One is Green Lantern & Superman (for Bug) and the other is Bat Girl and Wonder Woman (for Bunny).

Moving into the "girls" section we found this Little Pet Shop Speedy Trails RC car with pet ($16.93).

Then the we found this Moxie Girls Glitterin' Style Doll set.  It has glitter that you can decorate stickers with that add pizzazz to her clothes!  What little girl wouldn't LOVE that?

Then we found this LIV Sophie Stylin' Head ($16.48) and knew this would be perfect.  Hair styling extravaganza anyone?

Like any girl her age, Bunny LOVES play dough.  We recently stumbled upon Moon Dough which is about 1000 times better.  It never dries out like play dough and is in general pretty awesome.  So when we ran across this set, we knew we had to get it ($5.64).

  

Knowing what a pain it is to jump rope by yourself we were excited when we found this absolutely cool Swizzler Hopper Flext Rope ($11.95).  Cool.  Shiney.  Pink.  Oh yeah, it has Bunny written all over it!

And this Bizu animal jewelry kit thingy ($3.74).  I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but it's jewelry she can put together herself, that looks like animals.  She'll love it.

We found these great costumes for the Zhu Zhu pets we Santa got them last Christmas.  One is a fairy princess complete with tiara. And the other is a dragon!

And we found these great generic magnetic drawing boards ($2.08/each).

And finally, we came across this Paper Jamz guitar ($8.24).  I'm not entirely sure how these works. From what I can tell, they're paper (no strings) but through touch and awesome technology, you can play along with pre-made songs or you can free style music on your own.  Using real guitar chords (even though there's no strings).  We got this for Bug.  And for $8 I'm willing to figure out how this guitar can turn my boy into a rock star!

We got all of this stuff for $127.24 (before tax).   That's roughly $64 per kid for 8-9 gifts each.  Not too shabby! The sale is going on right now.  You should run, not walk, to your nearest Target and check it out.  


Well? What are you still reading this for?  Go on!   

Seriously.. Thoughts?