Xmas shopping

[Lilacwonder]

How do you Christmas shop for your young children...other than if they can write a list. I have a 3 year old and I used to make lists and buy online but this year Im just going to head into the nearest city and hit the toyshops and see whats around. Do you make lists or are you impulsive and just go to the shops? Just curious as my friend and myself have started chatting about Xmas and how we approach the shopping

I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with going to the shops to see what there is BUT I would say you’ll potentially be ripped off if you just go to e.g. Smyths and buy what you see. There can be huge differences in the price of the exact same item’s as we realised last Christmas when shopping for our daughter, one item in particular was £40 from Smyths, £37 on Amazon or £30 from Argos.

I do personally prefer shopping in person but to be honest because of the huge variations in price of the same items across different stores/online now it does really put me off just going for a look and buying there & then.

I plan it carefully so they get a range of different types of toys and not too much so they’re overwhelmed.

We make a small list for each of them of things they’ve recently asked for/been interested in and get those as the main presents but then I do have a wander round the shops and see what else I come across. I do find things I otherwise wouldn’t have thought of

3 years old is pretty young.
TBH I can't remember them asking for anything specific at that age.
When my DC's were 3-6 they were happy with a few simple age appropriate toys and books, and I focused on toys that would help develop them in a variety of ways.
I really enjoyed shopping in bricks and mortar shops, but today I would start earlier and shop online for the best deals.
I never was one for buying impulsively I usually had a fair idea of what would be a nice gift for each DC.