This year we're hitting 650$CAD, which is more than I'd like, but is what it takes to cover things nicely, it seems. We're doing more handmade things, and more budget-conscious things, than we did in the past few years, and it's made a difference of a few hundred, so it's nice to see the impact of the effort.
This includes:
- Gifts for each other (75$ limit - not huge things, but, like, my husband is getting a watch and 2 expensive books he's been oogling for 6 months)
- Gifts for our kid (about 120$ total)
- 'larger' family gifts (mom, dad, in-laws, both my siblings, my husband's younger sister and our niece - we stopped doing presents with his older sister and just focus on the kids, which is nice)
- 'smaller' gifts- friends (4 of them close enough), grandparents and great-aunt (2), cousin (we usually buy him a bottle of scotch and he buys us a nice bottle of rum, so it's totally an exchange there... )
- Cash holiday gifts. Childcare lady (100$ cash) because she's amazing and takes great care of our daughter and we appreciate her. 25-30$ for the mail lady (we do a LOT of online shopping because we're super rural, and she'll deliver huge packages, bring them around the back of the house so we don't have to get them in town, drop them off at my in-law's if they need a signature, etc - basically, she makes our life a LOT easier. I know not everyone does this, but...)
And then there's holiday meals. Fortunately, the traditional food isn't horrifically expensive (tourtière, cretons, and the like...) - maybe add 50$ total for 8 tourtieres spread across 4-5 holiday meals, and then cretons for 2 weeks (and more meals), and butter/GF flour for cookies...
So, in conclusion: holidays are expensive. Less expensive than they could be, and more expensive than they should be. Good thing they make us happy, or we'd be pissed about the expense. ;)