I have a direct sweep from my checking account every week of $25 that goes to a Christmas Club savings acct. I do not have separate budgets for everyone - I make a list of what I want to get everyone and figure it out from there. We buy only for the my kids and grandkids, a gift for 2 little girls, and a gift for DH's parents, and his brother and sister in law.

I don't have a set budget. I expect to buy three gift cards for the family gift exchange and I'm going to get them from a grocery chain here to get gasoline points. Dh is very hard to shop for so if I can find him something he likes I guess I'll pay whatever for it. Don't get me wrong, he doesn't have expensive tastes and he'd be happy with X. But he's just really hard to buy things for.

Ds is hard as well and he is only 5. He has that 'engineering' gene in him and while he loves that kind of technical stuff, he often doesn't have the motor skills for it yet and he gets frustrated. He is ga-ga about nature, but alas, getting him something nature related in December is a real challenge. For instance, he loves bugs and I bought him this Ladybugland thing where he can hatch his own ladybugs. I got this for him for his birthday in December and we had to wait for summer to get the eggs in order to release them outside. Anyway, my techie nature-nut is hard to buy for! I guess the point is I don't have a set budget because I need to shop for my boys on a 'that's it! he'll love it' basis. If it is too much I forgo it, but if I think he'll really like it I'll probably buy it. This is a kid that walks into toys R us and walks out with one thing, maybe. He just can't find things he likes at most toy stores. And he's 5! The upside? He almost never asks for anything!

we try to spend under $500 total and thats for 7 nieces and nephews, 5 2nd cousins, 4 couples(my sibling and my dad) the inlaws wich is 4 people and my 3 kids.

so in total 23 people
i however have been lucky to get all 7 of my nieces and nephews gifts for under 5 bucks and they were all originally over 20 so i saved there. also this year i have enough money from surveys and gift cards for surveys that i can take care of all but my kids so we will be doing very well this year and should be able to make it well under 500...

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.

I don't have a set amt that I spend either but I do save towards Christmas, all year long. I've been doing it since I was in college. The amt has increased per week over the years, but the routine is the same. It works out really well for me.

I come from a very (very) large family of almost 60 people (parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and first cousins). On my mom's and dh's side of the family, we do a budget: $5-$10 for anyone who is single, $10-$20 for couples, and no more than $50 on each parent. On my dad's side of the family, we do secret santa and each person draws one name. The limit is $25, you can spend less, but you can't go over. We get my dad's mom something extra even though we draw names. Most of the time it's around $20.00. DH and I try not to spend more than $100 each for eachother. My co-workers and I usually draw names or do a breakfast/lunch type potluck. For my friends, I usually give them a handmade Christmas ornament that coinsides with something important in their life that year.

I used to buy for everyone in our family, in-laws, my parents, nieces and nephews and my brothers and husbands brothers and sisters. Plus my kids and my husband. That got to be too expensive and we just couldn't afford it anymore with our extended family growing so large. Now I only buy for my kids and I try to only spend 100 per child. This year I don't think I'm going to buy them toys though, because they have so many. I think I may get them memberships to the Y or other local places they can do things at.

Dh and I do not exchange gifts, we usually just try to have a Date Night during the busy Christmas Holidays.

I don't really have set spending limits for our kids since they are so many different ages it would be impossible to spend the same amount of money on each one.

For DH's side of the family his two nieces and only nephew are married with their own families, we give each family a $50 Visa gift card. His two brothers and SIL's get a framed 8x10 photo of our kids. DH's parents spend the winter in the South were its warmer so we usually pay $100 towards the lot rent for their travel trailer.

My side of the family is a little different, my parents do not buy gifts for anyone anymore, the Christmas meal that they provide is the gift. My brothers, sister and I no longer exchange gifts from our families, we all have 4 children each. We take up a collection and make a donation to the American Cancer Society in my parents name (my Mom has lost 4 siblings to cancer).

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DS-16
DD-13
DD-5
DS-3

I don't actually know what I spend. I shop all year at clearance sales for Christmas. I have a large number of people for which I must buy gifts. My husband is the boss and gives a gift to each of his staff members at Christmas in addition to a large family, gift exchange parties, and teachers (and special service providers like the speech therapist, etc.).

I have just bought 6 throw blankets marked down from $19.99 to $4.98 for Christmas gifts. They look very nice and are good quality left from last Christmas's stock. I bought some jewelry sets 80% off at an upper end little shop here in town so that a necklace and earrings came out to about $10. I bought four necklace/earring sets. I bought a Barbie for $2.99 marked down from $12.99 for a stocking stuffer for my daughter. I bought a couple of large lots of scrapbooking stuff on ebay that I am breaking up into several gifts. I bought some books (new in plastic shrink wrap) on ebay for men's gifts at about 1/3 of retail including postage. I have bought more already for this Christmas, I just can't think of all of it right now.

I buy all through the year so that when we get to December, we will only be spending about $200 in that month. I spend about $100 on my daughter. My husband and I do not exchange gifts, but sometimes buy something for the house that we consider our gift. One year it was a new dishwasher, another a 32" plasma TV for our room, the last two years, nothing.

We never end up feeling particularly stressed financially in December. This way has worked for my entire married life of 20 (almost 21) years. We got married while we were still in college and this was the only way we could afford Christmas. It worked so well that I continued doing it.

Last year, I think we spent about $550 total ($325 on the kids). Most of my extended family has stopped exchanging gifts, but we do still get together around Christmas.