Omg why does figuring out gifts have to be so darn frustrating? Or is it just me? LOL

I guess I have always had this thing for wanting to give the perfect gift, but have never had the money to give me a lot of choices. For most of my gifts for others this year I chose to go pretty simple, when I look back at all the time I spent trying to figure out a great gift I just don’t feel it was worth it because it was no better received than any other gift. So either the gift wasn’t as great as I thought, or the recipients really didn’t care. So it’s pretty much first thing I see that I think is good(or my kids have said, hey get that for them), that is what I got. My niece is different because for some reason she is so easy to buy for! For her it’s hard not buying up everything, but I had an idea leftover from last Christmas and her Birthday because I couldn’t find it, well I found it this time! So I have to force myself not to buy anything more for her.

Anyhoo, for my hubby and kids it’s different, I still want to get great gifts(not that my kids honestly deserve something so fantastic LOL, they have not been so great this year!, but they’re still my boys and I love them). So I decided on a Wii for the kids, really it’s for the whole family, I think it will be great for all of us. By the time I get the Wii, games and accessories for it, my usual PJ’s for everyone, and stocking stuffers, I will already be over what I ever spend on Christmas. So I stressed over where to buy everything from. I finally got that figured out, so far we only have the actual console itself, but that’s the important piece anyway LOL. So now I’m trying to figure out hubby’s gift. Normally our limit is about $100 to spend on each other(at least for the years we actually have money LOL). Well, what I really really want to get him I am not going to get for under $100, so after input from friends on Facebook I think I am going over our limit and buying him a camcorder. We have wanted one for a long time and always say “next year”, well as we keep saying “next year” our kids are getting older and there already have been so many memories I wish we had recorded, we’re only going to keep missing them until we actually get a camcorder. It looks like I can get a fairly decent one for under $300.

While I try to get over the fact that I’m spending so much and knowing I’m going to have to do some real number crunching and budgeting in the new year, I’m totally stressing and frustrating myself over what camcorder to get! I have like a dozen tabs open on my browser looking at different cams and reviews and all that. It seems every one of them has a good number of people that like that particular model as well as a good number who didn’t. I can’t figure out which one to go for!! Of course I would rather spend less, but I don’t want to buy something and find out it’s one that takes crappy videos, or it’s one that is a headache to actually put your video on discs from….or whatever of the many other complaints I see here and there about the cams. Add on top of that that I have never had one so I don’t quite understand some of the differences of what they record onto and how to transfer that to the computer and onto DVD’s. I don’t want to buy something that we will end up having to buy expensive cassettes for, or something that we will have to buy a specific program to convert things.

I guess we are having a good Christmas this year LOL(hubby already got me a Dyson, early gift, I was in BAD need of a new vacuum), making up for the many years we have not. But it still doesn’t mean we can necessarily afford it LOL. I get told a lot that I stress way too much over this kind of thing. We don’t smoke, we don’t drink, we don’t do drugs, we don’t go to bars, we don’t even go on holidays to spend money on, so I shouldn’t feel bad spending money on something like this….but I do….guess it’s from spending so many years with no money LOL.

Anyone have anything to say good or bad about some of the under $300 camcorders on the market I would love to hear it!!