Planning out Christmas

So Robb and I have been slowly paying off debt and finally getting ourselves further along in food storage. Something that I am trying to focus this year for Christmas is not putting anything on credit. We have already started planning this out by setting an amount for each of us and sticking to it, as well as thinking a little further outside the box and making certain things where we can. Robb and I both want larger items for Christmas so we agreed that we would get eachother that larger item and then just do eachothers stocking stuffers. We also have a set amount for each of the kids (our own). We have already set them down with magazines and they cut out pictures of things that they wanted and made their wish list's. This is somethings that I would recommend for every parent. We started doing this a few years ago with Katiya and Ethan. We simply take the weeks adds, in our case this year Walmart and Target both did little booklets on things that were hot for this year. They were told that they could pick 5-6 items and glue them on the paper and we would send them to Santa and Santa would get to decide how many he would get them. The great things about this is when they cut out the pictures you can see the price of the toy and that helps us to know what we can actually get and what we can say no way to. Then I get them one thing from Santa and then one or two of the items we get them from us. Then we get a few small items and then some things that they need i.e. PJs, shirts, decorative sock, etc. Then after all of that is done, I make sure to take note of Niece's, nephew's, and siblings, and who we have either drawn for and those that we need to get gift's for. Then on to neighbor's, this year will be quite different I am actually in a steady, stable neighborhood with people that have made this place there home. So we are coming up with something that we can do as a family for the neighbor's as well.
Now things are little different this year seeing as we will have six girls besides our own. The great thing is, is there are several generous people out there who are taking care of Christmas for them. So I don't have to worry about that. But we are still trying to make it special for everyone.
We already have some of our activities for December picked out. We plan on taking everyone-yes all eight children, to see the lights turn on at temple square. We also plan on letting all of the kids make their own ornament and we are going to pop pop corn and string it and decorate our tree next weekend as well. Then we plan on taking the girls to go sledding up near donut falls on a Saturday. I would love to do some caroling, that one is up for debate, we will see.
I love the holidays and it is even more fun with tons of kids to get excited with you.