How to Plan the Perfect Holiday Gift Exchange

Gift-giving comes with an enormous price tag--figuratively and literally. You may worry: Is the gift appropriate? Is it too expensive or too cheap? A creative approach to keeping costs down is a gift exchange (popular with large families and office groups).

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Research gift-exchange ideas. Some of the more popular are Secret Santa, the Cookie Swap and White Elephant.

2. Decide which is best for your group. If it's a neighborhood party, a cookie swap is a great, low-cost idea. Offices are usually good crowds for Secret Santa because it relieves the pressure of getting a "thoughtful" gift for someone you only know through work, yet it's still more personal than cookies.

3. Plan accordingly. For the Secret Santa, have everyone draw from a hat to make the master list, and set monetary limits for gift prices ($10-$20). For the Cookie Swap, make sure everyone knows far enough in advance to plan what they're going to bake, and have them bring an empty container for taking their "swapped" cookies home. If it's like White Elephant, set it up as you would the Secret Santa, but encourage guests to uncover their most unloved retail monstrosities from the depths of their hall closet. For fun, the idea is to have the ugliest gift. This is a great way to re-gift that "white elephant" your mother-in-law gave you.

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