Simplify Your Gift Giving This Year with Four Words

Despite what it might feel like to a five-year-old, we know that the holidays are about more than just exchanging presents. If you’d like to instill that important lesson in your own family—or maybe just simplify your gift-giving this season with a clever little game that can also help save some money—we’ve got a gameplan for you.

Instead of going hog wild at the mall this year, implement this four-word rubric to guide your gifting: Want, Wear, Need, Read. That means that for everyone who you’d like to shower with copious gifts this year—kids, parents, significant others and nieces and nephews among them—narrow down your buying plan to just four things, guided by each word.

This is your opportunity for indulgence. Get them that high-tech gadget or the Hatchimals (and I’m still not sure what that is) they’ve been pining for. Just one thing, and check it off the list.

With your second gift, you’ll be helping to fulfill a basic need—clothing—in hopefully a fun way, by buying your giftee something they’ll love to wear. Pajamas fit the bill, as does a funny t-shirt, warm fuzzy socks or just a great blouse.

Here is where holiday gifts do double duty, and you buy your giftee something that they’ve been needing, like a new backpack or a fresh new whisk to replace the one that’s been broken seemingly since the dawn of time.

With your last gift, the goal is to get them something a little educational. But it’s OK if the “read” gift is a pile of gossip magazines, too. Whatever feeds the soul.

Have you done the “Want, Wear, Need, Read” thing before?