Christmas is probably one of my favorite times of year. The season of family reunions, reconnecting with friends, good laughs, and giving and getting gifts. All that’s great – except when you have to buy a whole bunch of stuff for a whole bunch of people. That’s when the Christmas stress kicks in, as it’s easy to lose track of what you should be buying and for whom. Or get lots of ideas for someone and then never end up buying them what you’ve thought. Total chaos. Chaos with jingle bells and Mariah Carey, but still chaos. Luckily there’s a bunch of free Android apps that will save your skin when it comes to planning your Christmas shopping.
My Christmas List
Organizing your shopping can be super simple thanks to apps like My Christmas List. This useful tool keeps careful track of how much money you’re spending, what gifts you’ve bought, and what gifts you still have to buy. The app has three tabs for browsing: Gift List, Shop, and Stats. While the first section is as we’ve broken down above, in Shop you’ll find your pending presents and can buy them straight from Amazon. Plus the options menu lets you set a default Amazon store to access in all cases.
The last section, Stats, has different indicators to help you keep thorough track of your gift list: number of days until Christmas, what you’ve spent, how much of your budget is left, gifts left to wrap… Everything’s here so that you don’t miss anything this holiday season. [Download]
Christmas Gifts List
Which app you pick to organize your gift list depends on the small things, since the differences are quite subtle. This useful app from Medialoha stands out for its interface full of Christmassy charm. Though we might fault it for being a bit overloaded, its various icons and even the font will transport you right to Christmas morning in front of the tree.
This free Android tool has a great gift aggregator that’s super complete: it has fields for where you bought it, how much you spent, whether it’s been gift-wrapped, and even a photo. The only problem is that it’s got too much advertising, though of course you can pay for the full app to get rid of that. [Download]
Giftster – Wish List Registry
Gift-giving is great, but gift-getting is pretty great, too. Problems arise, though, for those people who are hellishly difficult to shop for. Everybody has a relative or friend with very specific tastes – like, ahem, yours truly – and it makes picking gifts an exercise in torture. For cases like this apps like Giftster are a lifesaver. With it you can view wish lists for all your friends – just so long as they’ve registered and made one.
The idea is to add, one by one, the various gifts you want to your wish list. Along with the standard info and a pic, which you can search for directly online, you can express your level of desire for the item with a star system. Plus you can add personal details like your clothing size, your hobbies and interests, etc., so that people can buy items that aren’t on your list. A super useful app but still hampered by the need for every person to register to add their details. [Download]
Christmas Gifts and Budget
This is probably the simplest Christmas gift organizer app on our list. It lets you set your budget and start adding the gifts to buy, or that you’ve already bought, for the people on your list. Everything is done quickly and efficiently, and the interface keeps your list of gifts and people visible at all times. Though it doesn’t have a ton of frills, the info is always quite clear, highlighting how your budget dwindles as you buy gifts.
It also has security options with a password so that nobody can see what you’ve bought – a nice touch if you’ve got kids hellbent on trying to figure out what their presents are. Christmas Gifts and Budget is a very interesting app thanks to its ease of use and the small amount of memory it takes up on Android devices. [Download]
